WAR 


BMNJAMIN  BRAWLEY'm 


yC-NRLF 


*B    7^S   b35 


M^i^S^ 


Digitized  by  the  Internet  Archive 

in  2008  with  funding  from 

IVIicrosoft  Corporation 


http://www.archive.org/details/africawarOObrawrich 


AFRICA 
AND  THE  WAR 


BY 

BENJAMIN  BRAWLEY 

(t 

Author  of  "A  Short  History  of  the  American  Negro," 

"  The  Negro  in  Literature  and  Art," 

"Your  Negro  Neighbor,"  etc. 


The  controversy  with  the  nations  is  not  over,  nor  will 
he,  until  the  divine  government  is  reverentially 
acknowledged  by  the  human  family. — Lorenzo  Dow, 


>      >    i      '    J     1     ) 


)      ,   I       1 
I      ) 


NEW  YORK 
"DUFFIELD  y  COMPANY 

1918 


n  ' 


n  4/3  ? 


Copyright,  1918,  by 
DUFFIELD  &  COMPANY 


«     < 


4      •      *  c        C        «       «    /  .       -  < 

c 
c      c 

•  •.(.  •  «■•  C«Ct«  '  *  « 


CONTENTS 


CHAP*  PAGB 

I.  Africa 3 

II.  David  Livingstonb 13 

III.  Germany's  Colonies  in  Africa  as  the  Central 

Problem  of  the  War 19 

IV.  Special  Problems  and  Difficulties    ....  29 

V.  The  Meaning  for  America .  35 


SUPPLEMENTARY  CHAPTERS 

I.  The  Freedom  of  the  Free .  49 

II.  Wycliffe  and  the  World  War 54 

III.  Lorenzo  Dow 66 

IV.  Thomas  Carlyle,  the  Negro  Question,  and  the 

Present  World  Problem 85 


67iS?0 


PREFACE 

The  Civil  War  in  the  United  States  was 
fought  to  decide  the  destiny  of  the  Negro  in 
America.  The  great  war  of  our  own  day  is  to 
determine  the  future  of  the  Negro  in  the  world. 
Alsace-Lorraine,  Belgium,  the  Balkans,  and 
even  Russia,  all  become  second  in  importance 
to  the  overwhelming  question  of  the  possession 
and  development  of  the  continent  of  Africa. 
The  Negro,  not  the  Belgian  or  the  Russian,  is 
after  all  at  the  heart  of  the  problem. 

The  aim  of  the  present  work  is  not  to  give  a 
study  of  African  history  and  tradition.  That 
has  been  done  within  the  last  few  years  as  well 
as  it  is  likely  to  be  done  by  Dr.  W.  E.  B.  Du  Bois 
in  his  Uttle  book,  ^^The  Negro.''  It  is  not  to 
give  an  account  of  either  African  exploration 
or  colonization.  For  the  adequate  treatment  of 
these  subjects  the  earnest  reader  will  of  course 
go  to  such  authorities  as  Livingstone,  Schwein- 
furth,  and  Johnston.    Nor  is  the  aim  to  set  forth 


Preface 

the  part  played  by  the  native  African  or  the 
American  Negro  in  the  war.  That  is  all  a  thrill- 
ing story  that  will  some  day  await  the  capable 
teller.  The  aim  of  the  pages  that  follow  is 
simply  to  set  forth  the  striking  features  of  a 
definite  situation  developed  by  the  world  con- 
flict and  to  indicate  the  meaning  of  this  for 
America.  Anything  else  is  incidental.  Each  of 
the  supplementary  chapters,  however,  attempts 
to  take  the  world  view,  and  it  is  hoped  that  in 
a  larger  and  more  spiritual  way  they  may  be 
found  to  bear  out  some  of  the  ideas  in  the  more 
practical  chapters  that  precede  them. 

Benjamin  Brawley. 

Morehouse  College,  Atlanta, 
October  15,  1918. 


>  ) 

)        )    J        >     )    )         ) 

>  )      3    '      J      •       <>         ) 

5  •) 


)    J  i         '    >       J  )  1)  '     -     ' 


.     ^     , 


'  ) 


AFRICA  AND  THE  WAR 


•     • 

(     C 

c 

c 

C            f 

t 

t        r 

( 

( 

( 

c      < 

t  t 

c 
t 

u 

't' 

•     ( 

t 

o« 

/ 

f 
f   c 

r            ( 

c 
c 
1 

• 
• 

f 

'f 

C      ,  6-  t 

c. 

f 

>■"? 

c 
• 

c 
( 

t 

c 

c  c  c 

c 
•  c 

• 

AFRICA  AND  THE  WAR 


o         •, 

■'5  »       ^  )      J 


>  )      )     )   J        .J  ,)  J 


AFRICA       %  .  *,•  o    ::^  -  .:„^ 


A  FRICA  was  the  home  of  the  Pharaohs,  and 
l\  of  Cleopatra — the  land  of  the  lotus-eaters, 
of  caravans,  and  of  pyramids.  Neither  Asia  nor 
Europe  can  equal  the  riches  or  the  dreams  of 
this  loneliest  of  continents,  or  rival  the  pathos 
of  its  song.  It  has  nourished  the  Carthaginians, 
the  Abyssinians,  the  Senegalese,  and  built  em- 
pire after  empire.  It  has  also  seen  such  heartless 
exploitation  of  human  beings  as  the  world  in  all 
its  centuries  never  witnessed  before. 

It  is  dijfficult  for  us  to  conceive  of  the  vastness 
of  this  continent.  It  holds  over  11,600,000 
square  miles.  It  is  nearly  four  times  as  large 
as  our  own  United  States.  We  speak  of  Georgia 
as  the  largest  of  our  states  east  of  the  Missis- 

8 


C     C     t 


4  Africa  and  the  War 

sippi.  Africa  is  two  hundred  times  as  large  as 
Georgia.  From  Cape  Town  to  Cairo  is  a  dis- 
tance of  5,000  miles,  and  the  farthest  points 
east  and  west  are  4,650  miles  apart.  The  lake 
system  of  Central  Africa  is  equaled  only  by  our 
own  Great  Lakes,  while  four  great  rivers — the 
Nile,  the  Niger,  the  Congo,  and  the  Zambezi — 
,  rival  the,  Mississippi. 

And  here  is  a  population  of  the  most  diversi- 
;  i:i  jS^  iypesl  The,  natives,  perhaps  175,000,000  in 
number,  extend  all  the  way  from  the  cultivated 
Egyptian  or  the  wariike  Zulu  to  the  Central 
African  bushman,  and  from  four  to  seven  feet 
in  height.  In  the  North  are  the  Algerians  and 
Egyptians,  people  partially  of  Hamitic  or 
Semitic  stock,  with  consequently  some  infusion 
of  Caucasian  blood.  In  the  region  of  the  upper 
Nile  are  the  Abyssinians,  children  of  the  ancient 
Ethiopians.  On  the  west  coast  are  the  Negroes, 
while  in  the  vast  region  extending  for  two  thou- 
sand miles  south  of  the  Soudan  are  the  two 
hundred  related  Bantu  tribes,  merging  into  the 
Hottentot  in  the  far  South,  or  into  the  Kaffirs 
in  the  Southeast.  Into  this  enormous  popula- 
tion are  thrown  two  million  Europeans — Eng- 
lishmen, Frenchmen,  Portuguese,  Boers — living 


Africa  6 

generally  in  the  cultivated  centers  near  the 
coast.  What  might  we  not  expect  from  this 
medley  of  races? 

The  flora  and  the  fauna  are  the  most  wonder- 
ful in  the  world.  Here  are  the  antelope,  the 
hippopotamus,  the  crocodile;  the  lion,  the 
hyena,  the  giraffe;  the  ostrich,  the  python,  the 
gorilla.  In  the  North  are  the  olive,  the  date, 
the  fig;  in  the  South  the  baobab,  the  banana, 
and  cotton ;  and  hundreds  of  thousands  of  fertile 
square  miles  are  still  virgin  soil. 

^p  ^^*  ^^  ^1^  ^^* 

When  at  the  end  of  the  Middle  Ages  the  first 
modem  explorers  went  down  the  coast  of  Africa 
and  began  the  slave-trade,  they  by  no  means 
came  to  a  country  altogether  savage.  The  whole 
current  conception  of  Africa  and  the  Africans 
can  find  explanation  only  in  the  events  of  the 
last  four  hundred  years.  When  the  Moham- 
medans came  down  from  the  Northwest  to  the 
western  part  of  the  Soudan  they  found  there 
the  Negro  kingdom  of  Ghana,  which  by  the 
middle  of  the  eleventh  century  had  a  capital 
built  of  wood  and  stone,  and  a  king  with  an  army 
of  two  hundred  thousand.  Early  in  the  thir- 
teenth century  the  kingdom  of  Melle,  five  hun- 


6  Africa  and  the  War 

dred  miles  north  of  the  Gulf  of  Guinea,  began  to 
supersede  the  older  Ghana;  and  for  a  hundred 
years  it  was  the  foremost  power  in  this  part  of 
the  world.  '^Its  greatest  king,  Mansa  Musa, 
made  his  pilgrimage  to  Mecca  in  1324,  with  a 
caravan  of  sixty  thousand  persons.  He  took 
eighty  camel  loads  of  gold  dust  (worth  about 
five  million  dollars)  to  defray  his  expenses,  and 
greatly  impressed  the  people  of  the  East  with 
his  magnificence."*  Then  m  the  beginning  of 
the  sixteenth  century,  in  the  great  bend  of  the 
Niger,  rose  the  kingdom  of  Songhay,  most  ex- 
tensive of  all  the  Negro  empires.  Askia,  its 
greatest  ruler,  by  no  means  cultivated  the  splen- 
dor of  Mansa  Musa,  but  was  rather  a  student,  a 
statesman,  and  an  organizer.  During  his  reign 
he  consolidated  an  empire  nearly  as  large  in 
extent  as  all  Europe,  he  built  a  strong  university, 
and  we  are  told  that  ^^he  was  obeyed  with  as 
much  docility  on  the  farthest  limits  of  the  empire 
as  he  was  in  his  own  palace,  and  there  reigned 
everywhere  great  plenty  and  absolute  peace." 
Such  was  the  culture  that  without  outside  as- 
sistance Africa  had  developed  before  the  coming 
of  the  European. 

*  Du  Bois:  The  Negro,  52. 


Africa  7 

Then  came  the  slave-trader.  Let  any  one 
who  wonders  why  such  kingdoms  as  those  just 
mentioned  have  not  been  more  permanent  in 
their  influence  remember  slavery.  The  center 
of  the  trade  in  the  colonial  period  of  American 
history  was  the  coast  for  about  two  hundred 
miles  east  of  the  Niger  River.  From  this  com- 
paratively small  region  came  as  many  slaves  as 
from  all  the  rest  of  Africa  together.  Portugal 
led  the  way.  In  1441  Prince  Henry  sent  out  one 
Gonzales,  who  captured  three  Moors  on  the 
African  coast.  These  offered  as  ransom  ten 
Negroes  whom  they  had  taken.  The  Negroes 
were  brought  to  Lisbon  in  1442,  and  in  1444 
Prince  Henry  regularly  began  the  European 
trade  from  the  Guinea  Coast.  For  fifty  years 
his  country  enjoyed  a  monopoly  of  the  traffic. 
The  slaves  were  taken  at  first  to  Europe,  and 
later  to  the  Spanish  possessions  in  America, 
where  Indian  slavery  did  not  work  well.  Spain 
herself  joined  in  the  trade  in  1517,  and  as  early 
as  1530  WiUiam  Hawkins,  a  merchant  of 
Plymouth,  visited  the  Guinea  Coast  and  took 
away  a  few  slaves.  England  really  entered  the 
field,  however,  with  the  voyage  in  1562  of  Cap- 
-tain  John  Hawkins,  son  of  William,  who  also 


8  Africa  and  the  War 

went  to  the  west  coast.  In  course  of  time  Eng- 
land came  to  regard  the  slave-trade  as  of  such 
importance  that  when  in  1713  she  accepted  the 
Peace  of  Utrecht  she  insisted  on  having  awarded 
to  her  for  thirty-three  years  the  exclusive  right 
to  transport  slaves  to  the  Spanish  colonies  in 
America. 

Slavery  is  a  thing  of  the  past  now  in  English 
and  American  dominions,  but  even  until  our 
own  day  the  curse  has  lingered  in  Africa,  chiefly 
through  the  work  of  Mohammedans.  Within 
comparatively  recent  years  African  slaves  have 
been  taken  away  to  Arabia  and  Persia,  and  one 
might  still  occasionally  come  upon  the  trafl&c 
in  the  region  of  the  Congo,  or  on  the  cocoa 
plantations  of  the  Portuguese  islands  on  the 
west  coast. 

Such  is  the  system  that  ultimately  gave  rise 
to  two  interesting  colonies  in  the  West.  As  early 
as  1787  Sierra  Leone  was  founded  by  the  Eng- 
lish as  a  colony  for  free  Negroes,  some  of  whom 
had  gained  their  freedom  in  consequence  of  Lord 
Mansfield's  decision  in  1772,  by  which  any 
slave  who  touched  the  soil  of  England  became 
free.  Others  had  been  discharged  from  the 
British  army  after  the  American  Revolution, 


Africa  9 

and  all  were  leading  in  England  a  more  or  less 
precarious  existence.  In  1787  about  four  hun- 
dred were  taken  to  a  district  purchased  from  the 
king  of  Sierra  Leone,  and  five  years  later  twelve 
hundred  Negroes  who  had  escaped  from  the 
United  States  to  Canada  were  also  taken  thither. 
England  cared  with  wisdom  for  the  Negroes, 
giving  them  a  daily  allowance  for  the  first  six 
months,  assigning  lands  to  them,  and  generally 
seeking  to  bring  them  under  the  influence  of  re- 
ligious education.  As  early  as  1783  it  had  been 
proposed  that  such  a  colony  as  this  should  be 
established  for  free  American  Negroes;  but  it 
was  not  until  1816  that  the  American  Coloniza- 
tion Society  was  organized,  and  not  until  1822, 
after  a  treaty  with  certain  native  princes  had 
been  concluded,  that  active  settlement  began, 
each  man  being  allotted  a  tract  of  thirty  acres 
with  the  means  of  cultivating  it.  After  a  while, 
however,  the  agents  of  the  society  became 
discouraged  at  the  difficulties  that  had  to  be 
overcome  and  returned  to  America  with  a  few 
faint-hearted  colonists.  Others  rallied  around  a 
spirited  and  determined  Negro,  Elijah  Johnson, 
and  remained,  enlarging  the  colony  by  the  pur- 
chase of  new  tracts  of  land.    Within  recent  years 


10  Africa  and  the  War 

Liberia  has  had  a  varied  history.  Hard  pressed 
by  her  powerful  neighbors,  a  few  years  ago  she 
appealed  to  the  United  States  for  aid  in  her 
business  affairs,  and  in  1909  President  Taft  ap- 
pointed a  special  commission  to  investigate  the 
matter.  Very  recently  (1918)  the  American 
Government  has  assisted  with  a  new  loan  of 
$5,000,000. 

Even  before  Sierra  Leone  and  Liberia  were 
founded,  however,  there  had  been  planted  in  the 
extreme  southern  part  of  Africa  a  colony  that 
represented  an  entirely  different  tendency,  one 
of  Europeans  who  came  not  so  much  as  slave- 
traders  as  to  possess  the  land  and  to  found  their 
homes.  It  was  about  the  middle  of  the  seven- 
teenth century,  in  1652,  that  the  Dutch,  famous 
seamen  of  the  time,  took  possession  of  Cape 
Colony.  Many  Boers^  or  Dutch  farmers,  enoi- 
grated  to  South  Africa,  being  interested  espe- 
cially in  the  raising  of  cattle.  They  were  joined 
in  course  of  time  by  a  few  Huguenots  who  had 
been  driven  out  of  France.  All  became  slave- 
holders. Early  in  the  nineteenth  century,  in 
1814,  England  purchased  the  Cape  from  Hol- 
land. Twenty  years  later,  in  consequence  of 
England's  general  emancipation  act,  Parliament 


Africa  It 

bought  all  the  Negroes  held  by  the  Boers  and 
set  them  free.  The  Boers  had  never  been  happy 
about  their  transfer  of  allegiance,  and  eight 
thousand  of  them,  disgusted  with  the  loss  of 
their  slaves  and  the  small  price  received  for 
them,  left  the  Cape  and  pushed  northward  into 
the  wilderness.  Crossing  the  Orange  River,  they 
founded  the  Orange  Free  State.  Some,  going 
still  farther  north,  crossed  the  Vaal  River,  a 
tributary  of  the  Orange,  and  established  the 
Transvaal  or  South  African  Republic  on  what 
was  practically  a  slave-holding  foundation.  The 
harsh  treatment  accorded  the  natives  by  the 
Boers,  the  later  conflict  with  England,  and  the 
stiurdy  comradery  of  Englishman  and  Boer  in 
the  great  war  are  all  matters  too  familiar  for 
present  comment. 

Such  were  the  special  colonies  planted  on  the 
western  or  southern  coasts.  The  interior  of 
Africa,  however,  awaited  development.  The 
modern  period  of  scientific  exploration  really 
began  with  James  Bruce,  whose  dJB_coveries 
and  adventures,  especially  in  the  region  of 
Abyssinia  and  the  upper  Nile,  stimulated  the 
founding  of  the  African  Association  in  1788, 
which    organization    even    before    the    close 


12  Africa  and  the  War 

of  the  eighteenth  century  sent  out  Ledyard, 
Lucas,  Houghton,  and  Mungo  Park  to  ex- 
plore the  Niger  basin.  The  name,  however, 
before  which  all  others  pale  is  that  of  David 
Livingstone. 


n 


DAVID  LIVTNGSTONB 


WHEN  Livingstone  began  his  work  of  ex- 
ploration in  1849,  practically  all  of  Africa 
between  the  Sahara  and  the  Dutch  settlements 
in  the  extreme  South  was  unknown  territory. 
By  the  time  of  his  death  in  1873  he  had  brought 
this  entire  region  within  the  view  of  civilization^ 
On  his  first  journey,  or  series  of  journeys  (1849- 
1856),  starting  from  Cape  Town,  he  made  his 
way  northward  for  a  thousand  miles  to  Lake 
Ngami;  then,  pushing  on  to  Linyanti,  he  un- 
dertook one  of  the  most  perilous  excursions  of 
his  entire  career,  his  objective  for  more  than  a 
thousand  miles  being  Loanda  on  the  West  Coast, 
which  point  he  reached  after  six  months  in  the 
wilderness.  Coming  back  to  Linyanti,  he  turned 
his  face  eastward,  discovered  Victoria  Falls  on 
the  Zambezi,  and  finally  arrived  at  Quilimane 
on  the  coast.    On  his  second  series  of  journeys 

13 


n 


14  Africa  and  the  War 

(1858-1864)  he  explored  the  Zambezi,  the  Shire, 
and  the  Rovuma  rivers  in  the  East,  and  dis- 
covered Lake  Nyasa.  On  his  final  expedition 
(1866-1873),  in  hunting  for  the  upper  courses 
of  the  Nile  he  discovered  Lakes  Tanganyika, 
Mweru,  and  Bangweolo,  and  the  Lualaba  River. 
His  achievement  as  an  explorer  was  as  distinct 
as  it  was  unparalleled.  His  work  as  a  mis- 
sionary and  his  worth  as  a  man  it  is  not  quite  so 
easy  to  express  concretely;  but  in  these  capaci- 
ties he  was  no  less  distinguished  and  his  accom- 
plishment no  less  signal. 

There  had  been  missionaries,  and  great  ones, 
in  Africa  before  Livingstone.  There  was  the 
Moravian,  George  Schmidt,  who,  coming  in 
1737,  labored  for  six  years  among  the  natives 
in  the  South  until  he  was  forced  by  the  settlers 
to  give  up  his  work.  Five  years  after  him  came 
John  Schwalber,  who  also  labored  among  the 
Hottentots  and  who  died  after  eight  years  of 
service.  On  the  East  Coast  one  hundred  years 
later  there  was  the  great  Krapf ,  and  in  the  South 
Robert  Moffat,  Livingstone's  own  father-in-law, 
who  labored  for  fifty-three  years,  helping  to  open 
up  Bechuanaland  for  later  workers.  The  differ- 
ence between  Livingstone  and  these  consecrated 


David  Livingstone  IS 

men  was  not  so  much  in  devotion  as  in  the  con- 
ception of  the  task.  He  himself  felt  that  a 
missionary  in  the  Africa  of  his  day  was  to  be 
more  than  a  mere  preacher  of  the  word — that  he 
would  have  also  to  be  a  Christian  statesman, 
and  even  a  director  of  exploration  and  com- 
merpe  if  need  be.  This  was  his  title  to  great- 
ness; to  him  ''the  end  of  the  geographical  feat 
was  only  the  beginning  of  the  enterprise.'' 
Knowing,  however,  that  many  honest  persons 
did  not  sympathize  with  him  in  this  concep- 
tion of  his  mission,  after  1856  he  declined 
longer  to  accept  salary  from  the  missionary 
society  that  originally  sent  him  out,  working 
afterwards  under  the  patronage  of  the  Brit- 
ish Government  and  the  Royal  Geographical 
Society. 

His  sympathy  and  his  courtesy  were  unfail- 
ing, even  when  he  himself  was  placed  in  the 
greatest  danger.  Said  Henry  Drummond  of 
him:  ''Wherever  David  Livingstone's  footsteps 
are  crossed  in  Africa  the  fragrance  of  his  memory 
seems  to  remain."  On  one  occasion  a  hunter 
was  impaled  on  the  horn  of  a  rhinoceros,  and  a 
messenger  ran  eight  miles  for  the  physician. 
Although  he  himself  had  been  wounded  for  life 


16  Africa  and  the  War 

by  a  lion  and  his  friends  insisted  that  he  should 
not  ride  at  night  through  a  wood  infested  with 
wild  beasts,  Livingstone  insisted  on  his  Christian 
duty  to  go,  only  to  find  that  the  man  had  died 
and  to  have  to  retrace  his  footsteps.  Again  and 
again  his  party  would  have  been  destroyed  by 
some  savage  chieftain  if  it  had  not  been  for  his 
own  unbounded  tact  and  courage.  To  the  de- 
voted men  who  helped  him  he  gave  the  assur- 
ance that  he  would  die  before  he  would  permit 
them  to  be  taken;  and  after  his  death  at  Chi- 
tambo's  village  Susi  and  Chuma  journeyed  for 
nine  months  and  over  eight  hundred  miles  of 
dangerous  country  to  take  his  body  to  the  coast. 
Already  Livingstone  divined  the  danger  for  the 
future  of  the  harsh  attitude  of  the  Roman 
Catholics  toward  Protestants;  he  was  unre- 
mitting in  his  efforts  against  the  slave  trade; 
and  he  could  find  no  justification  whatever  for 
the  treatment  of  the  natives  by  the  Boers.  As 
for  himself,  on  one  occasion  at  Kolobeng  the 
Boers  smashed  all  the  chairs  and  medicine- 
bottles  in  the  house,  and  on  four  wagons  took 
away  the  table,  the  sofa,  and  everything  else 
that  was  worth  having.  Withal,  however,  he 
was  a  man  of  tremendous  faith,  in  his  mission, 


David  Livingstone  17 

in  his  country,  in  humanity,  in  God.    Wrote  he 
on  one  occasion : 

This  age  presents  one  great  fact  in  the  Providence  of 
God;  missions  are  sent  forth  to  all  quarters  of  the  world, — 
missions  not  of  one  section  of  the  Church,  but  from  all 
sections,  and  from  nearly  all  Christian  nations.  It  seems 
very  unfair  to  judge  of  the  success  of  these  by  the  number 
of  the  conversions  that  have  followed.  These  are  rather 
proofs  of  the  missions  being  of  the  right  sort.  The  fact 
which  ought  to  stimulate  us  above  all  others  is,  not  that 
we  have  contributed  to  the  conversion  of  a  few  souls, 
however  valuable  these  may  be,  but  that  we  are  diffusing 
a  knowledge  of  Christianity  throughout  the  world.  Future 
missionaries  will  see  conversions  follow  every  sermon.  We 
prepare  the  way  for  them.  We  work  for  a  glorious  future 
which  we  are  not  destined  to  see — ^the  golden  age  which 
has  not  been,  but  will  yet  be.  We  are  only  morning-stars 
shining  in  the  dark,  but  the  glorious  morn  will  break,  the 
good  time  coming  yet.  For  this  time  we  work;  may  God 
accept  our  imperfect  service. 

Of  such  quality  was  David  Livingstone — Mis- 
sionary, Explorer,  Philanthropist.  'Tor  thirty 
years  his  life  was  spent  in  an  unwearied  effort 
to  evangelize  the  native  races,  to  explore  the 


18  Africa  and  the  War 

undiscovered  secrets,  and  abolish  the  desolating 
slave  trade  of  Central  Africa/'  To  what  extent 
after  sixty  years  have  we  advanced  toward  his 
ideals?  With  what  justice  are  we  the  inheritors 
of  his  renown? 


Ill 

GERMANY^S  COLONIES  IN  AFRICA  AS  THE  CENTRAL 

PROBLEM   OF   THE   WAR     , 

INTEREST  in  colonization  in  Africa  was  very 
largely  an  outgrowth  of  the  great  industrial 
development  of  the  leading  countries  of  Europe 
in  the  closing  years  of  the  nineteenth  century. 
England  and  France  grew  apace  in  mining  and 
manufactures,  while  Germany,  under  the  stimu- 
lus of  Bismarck's  encouragement  of  internal 
development  after  the  era  of  his  great  military 
successes,  became  famous  both  for  the  variety 
and  the  intrinsic  worth  of  her  products.  The 
whole  phenomenon  was  in  the  form  of  a  circle. 
Invention  and  commerce  stimulated  coloniza- 
tion, and  distant  possessions,  with  their  raw 
materials  and  their  demands  for  finished  prod- 
ucts, in  turn  gave  new  impetus  to  industry  in 
the  home  countries.  After  the  work  of  Living- 
stone Europe  could  not  long  remain  unmindful 

19 


W  Africa  and  the  War 

of  the  vast  possibilities  of  an  undeveloped  con- 
tinent lying  at  her  very  door. 

The  new  era  was  signalized  by  the  efforts  of 
Leopold  II,  King  of  the  Belgians.  From  the  be- 
ginning of  his  reign  in  1865  this  ruler  read  with 
interest  the  unfolding  page  of  African  explora- 
tion. On  his  invitation  there  assembled  in 
Brussels  in  1876  a  congress  which  became  organ- 
ized as  the  International  Association  for  the 
Civilization  of  Central  Africa.  The  design  of 
the  association  was  not  only  for  the  distinctly 
scientific  purpose  of  exploration,  but  also  pro- 
fessedly for  the  ending  of  the  slave  trade,  and 
national  committees  were  formed  in  the  different 
countries  represented  for  the  better  promotion 
of  the  work.  It  was  under  the  auspices  of  this 
organization,  specifically  of  the  Committee  for 
the  Study  of  the  Upper  Congo,  that  Stanley, 
fresh  from  a  tour  of  the  Great  Lakes  of  Central 
Africa,  was  in  1879  sent  to  study  the  Congo 
region.  The  distinguished  explorer  returned 
after  five  years,  bringing  maps  of  a  great  terri- 
tory of  900,000  square  miles.  Even  before  he 
returned,  however,  because  the  national  com- 
mittees had  not  rendered  very  material  service, 
Leopold  had  more  and  more  been  obliged  to 


Germany^ s  Colonies  in  Africa        21 

finance  the  expedition  alone.  To  recover  what 
he  had  spent  he  began  to  develop  the  Congo 
territory  commercially.  In  1884,  after  about 
forty  stations  had  been  founded  and  steamers 
had  regularly  begun  to  ply  up  and  down  the 
river,  the  Committee  for  the  Study  of  the  Upper 
Congo,  that  is  to  say,  the  International  Asso- 
ciation, changed  its  name  to  the  International 
Association  of  the  Congo,  which  organization 
received  recognition  at  the  hands  of  the  United 
States.  Complications  now  arose.  Portugal  in- 
sisted on  a  claim  to  the  mouth  of  the  river  and 
sought  the  aid  of  Great  Britain.  Leopold  made 
kindly  overtures  to  France,  and  Bismarck  also 
opposed  Portugal  by  way  of  opposing  England. 
The  proposed  treaty  between  Portugal  and  Eng- 
land was  not  ratified.  England  having  been 
thwarted  for  the  moment,  Germany  was  now 
ready  to  recognize  the  Congo  State,  and  issued 
invitations  to  a  congress  at  Berlin.  Whatever 
the  motive  for  its  calling,  this  conference  was 
really  needed.  German  traders  had  already  set- 
tled far  down  on  the  west  coast,  French  and 
Portuguese  claims  were  conflicting,  and  in  gen- 
eral there  were  dangers  of  serious  compHcations. 
The  famous  congress  met  in  Berlin,  Novem- 


22  Africa  and  the  War 

ber  15,  1884.  It  not  only  recognized  the  vast 
domain  of  the  International  Association  of  the 
Congo,  but  laid  down  the  principle  that  if  any 
power  contemplated  the  establishment  of  a  pro- 
tectorate in  any  section  it  would  have  to  notify 
all  the  other  powers  before  doing  so.  Leopold 
promised  not  only  to  allow  freedom  of  com- 
merce in  the  region  under  his  protection,  but 
also  to  improve  the  condition  of  the  natives  who 
had  already  begun  to  suffer  under  his  system. 
It  was  not  long,  however,  before  he  began  to 
betray  his  trust.  Nevertheless  the  congress  re- 
mains noteworthy  as  an  effort  on  the  part  of 
the  great  powers  of  Europe  to  consider  with 
candor  and  with  open  minds  their  colonial 
claims  and  differences. 

It  was  in  1878  that  a  German  branch  of  the 
International  Association  was  founded.  Already 
for  some  years  German  missionaries  had  labored 
in  the  Southwest,  and  now  the  Southern  Congo 
and  the  eastern  region  near  Zanzibar  were  ex- 
plored. In  1884  Bismarck  declared  the  land 
along  the  coast  from  Angola  to  Cape  Colony 
under  German  protection,  and  thus  German 
Southwest  Africa  appeared  on  the  map.  In  the 
same  year,  after  dealings  with  native  chiefs. 


Germany's  Colonies  in  Africa        23 

Germany  also  declared  a  protectorate  over  To- 
goland,  a  little  kingdom  on  the  Gulf  of  Guinea, 
and  over  Kamerun,  a  much  larger  territory 
farther  east  of  the  Gulf.  German  East  Africa 
also  now  assumed  definite  shape.  This  was  the 
result  of  the  efforts  of  the  German  East  African 
Company.  In  1888  there  was  a  stern  revolt  of 
the  Arabs  working  in  the  section,  one  which  the 
company  was  not  strong  enough  to  handle. 
Berlin  accordingly  sent  an  Imperial  Commis- 
sioner to  take  charge.  Bismarck,  now  thor- 
oughly interested  in  colonization,  more  and 
more  offended  England  by  his  aggressive  meth- 
ods. After  he  fell  from  power  in  1890,  his  suc- 
cessor. Count  Caprivi,  endeavored  to  come  to 
an  understanding  with  Great  Britain.  The  re- 
sult was  a  settlement  in  the  same  year  by  which 
the  boundaries  of  Kamerun  became  fixed,  Ger- 
man East  Africa  was  extended  to  the  Belgian 
Congo,  a  narrow  strip  of  land  reaching  from  the 
northeast  end  of  German  Southwest  Africa  to 
the  Zambezi  River  was  definitely  secured,  and 
the  Island  of  Heligoland  in  the  North  Sea  was 
given  to  Germany  by  England.  In  return  Great 
Britain  received  full  power  over  Zanzibar  and 
a  clear  title  to  British  East  Africa.    The  settle- 


24  Africa  and  the  War 

ment  satisfied  nobody.  English  critics  were 
specially  bitter  in  view  of  the  fact  that  the  large 
section  known  as  German  East  Africa  lay 
directly  in  the  way  of  the  proposed  Cape-to- 
Cairo  railroad.  Germany,  on  the  other  hand, 
in  spite  of  the  large  concessions  granted  to  her, 
still  felt  that  too  much  had  been  yielded.  Ger- 
man East  Africa,  however,  now  entered  upon  a 
highly  prosperous  career.  In  German  South- 
west Africa  the  story  was  entirely  different. 
Formidable  conflicts  with  the  native  Hottentots 
and  later  with  the  Herreros  in  the  North  per- 
sistently attracted  attention  away  from  the  in- 
dustries of  peace  and  really  gave  rise  to  many 
problems  of  the  present  day. 

It  is  worth  while  to  review  what  in  the  mean- 
time had  been  done  in  African  colonization  by 
the  foremost  powers,  England  and  France.  Per- 
haps the  most  noteworthy  advance  in  African 
history  of  the  last  fifty  years  has  been  that  of 
the  English  in  South  Africa.  By  the  time  of 
the  treaty  with  Germany  in  1890  Great  Britain 
had  not  only  extended  her  boundaries  over 
Bechuanaland  and  Zululand  and  begun  to  ex- 
tend her  influence  in  Rhodesia;  she  had  gained 
the  vast  tract  of  Nigeria  in  the  west,  had  estab- 


Germany^ s  Colonies  in  Africa        26 

lished  a  protectorate  over  British  Somaliland  in 
the  northeast,  as  well  as  gained  a  firm  foothold 
in  Egypt.  France  in  the  meantime  had  ex- 
tended her  colonial  boundaries  imtil  she  had  in 
her  sphere  of  influence  the  whole  of  Northwest 
Africa  from  Tunis  to  the  Congo  and  from 
Senegal  to  Lake  Chad.  By  1896  she  had  also 
definitely  captured  and  subdued  the  island  of 
Madagascar. 

All  of  these  enormous  concessions  were  for 
the  time  being  made  secure  by  a  series  of  vital 
treaties.  We  have  already  remarked  the  agree- 
ment between  England  and  Germany  in  1890. 
An  agreement  between  England  and  France  a 
Uttle  later  in  the  same  year  definitely  sealed  the 
English  claim  to  Nigeria  and  the  French  claim 
to  Madagascar.  By  a  Franco-German  agree- 
ment of  1894  the  vague  boundaries  of  the  differ- 
ent protectorates  of  the  Soudan  region  were 
definitely  fixed  and  France  so  extended  her  in- 
fluence to  the  east  and  south  of  Kamerun  as  to 
connect  her  vast  section  in  the  Soudan  with 
that  on  the  west  coast.  A  final  Anglo-French 
agreement  of  1899  forced  upon  France  the  recog- 
nition of  English  claims  to  the  region  of  the 
upper  Nile,   the  British  position  being  made 


26  Africa  and  the  War 

strong  by  reason  of  Kitchener's  success  in  sup- 
pressing revolt.  In  return,  however,  for  French 
recognition  of  her  claims  upon  the  Egyptian 
Soudan,  England  formally  gave  her  approval 
to  the  vast  region  claimed  for  France  by  the 
Franco-German  treaty  of  1894. 

This  brief  account  has  omitted  mention  of  the 
Portuguese  dominions  of  Angola  and  Portuguese 
East  Africa,  the  Italian  possessions  in  the  North 
and  on  the  east  coast,  and  such  a  great  self- 
governing  coimtry  as  Abyssinia.  Enough  has 
been  said,  however,  to  remind  us  that  the  great 
rivals  in  Central  Africa  have  been  England, 
France,  and  Germany.  At  the  time  of  the  out- 
break of  the  war,  of  the  11,500,000  square  miles 
on  the  continent  of  Africa  France  was  in  control 
of  4,400,000  square  miles.  Great  Britain  3,700,- 
000,  Germany  931,000,  Belgium  909,000,  Portu- 
gal 794,000,  and  Spain  593,000.  While  France 
possessed  the  greatest  number  of  square  miles, 
her  dominions  included  the  Desert  of  Sahara; 
Great  Britain  was  really  in  possession  of  the 
most  promising  tracts.  Germany's  possessions 
embraced  one-twelfth  of  the  continental  area, 
and  one-twelfth  of  a  population  rapidly  ap- 
proaching 200,000,000.    From  the  strategically 


Germany^ s  Colonies  in  Africa        27 

placed  German  Southwest  Africa,  German  East 
Africa,  and  Kamerun  as  firm  bases,  however, 
she  aimed  ultimately  at  a  vast  Central  African 
Empire  that  would  not  only  hold  securely  the 
great  tract  of  the  Belgian  Congo,  but  dominate 
even  Egypt  and  South  Africa,  while  in  the  far 
northwest  she  would  finally  wrest  Morocco  from 
France.  In  other  words,  she  dreamed  of  ruling 
four-sevenths  of  both  the  territory  and  the 
people  of  Africa.  We  might  make  this  clearer 
by  saying  that,  aside  from  her  vision  of  dominat- 
ing Central  Europe,  South  America,  Australia, 
and  all  of  Asia  except  some  unimportant  tracts, 
in  Africa  alone  Germany  dreamed  of  possessing 
an  empire  that  in  extent  would  roughly  compare 
with  our  own  United  States  (exclusive  of  Alaska 
and  the  islands)  in  the  ratio  of  7  to  3.  And  let 
there  be  no  doubt  that  this  vast  territory  Ger- 
many was  determined  to  have ;  it  was  absolutely 
necessary  to  have  such  a  source  for  raw  mate- 
rials. Dr.  Paul  Leutwein,  son  of  a  former  Gov- 
ernor of  Southwest  Africa,  has  said,*  "If  Cen- 
tral Eiu'ope  comes  to  nothing,  then  we  shall 
indeed  have  Central  Africa.    Central  Europe,  on 

*  For  the  two  quotations  we  are  indebted  to  the  editor  of 
the  National  Geographic  Magazine ^  June,  1918,  p.  565. 


28  Africa  and  the  War 

the  other  hand,  without  Central  Africa,  can  not 
be  contemplated  for  a  moment;"  and  the  official 
publication  issued  by  the  German  commander 
at  Lodz  on  the  occasion  of  the  Emperor's  birth- 
day, January  27,  1915,  said:  "A  victorious  war 
would  give  us  the  Belgian  Congo,  the  French 
Congo,  and,  if  Portugal  continues  to  translate 
her  hostile  intentions  toward  us  into  actions, 
would  also  give  us  the  Portuguese  colonies  on  the 
east  and  west  coasts  of  Africa.  We  should  then 
have  a  colonial  empire  of  which  our  fathers 
could  never  have  dreamed/' 

We  can  now  see  how  supremely  significant 
was  the  taking  of  German  East  Africa  and 
Southwest  Africa  in  the  present  war.  It  meant 
nothing  less  than  the  shattering  of  Germany's 
vastest  dream,  one  greater  even  than  that  of 
Mittel-Em-opa,  and  the  seizure  of  a  territory 
five  hundred  times  as  important  as  continental 
Belgium. 


IV 


SPECIAL  PROBLEMS   AND  DIFFICULTIES 

THE  proper  disposition  of  the  German  col- 
onies, however,  only  opens  up  the  whole 
tremendous  problem  that  faces  the  statesmen 
who  must  determine  the  lines  for  the  future  de- 
velopment of  Africa.  Thirty-five  years  after 
the  Berlin  Congress  the  vast  continent  is  thrown 
back  upon  the  wisdom,  the  foresight,  and  the 
magnanimity  of  the  civilized  world;  and  upon 
the  decision  of  mankind  rests  the  destiny  of 
millions  of  human  beings  yet  imbom. 

Let  it  be  borne  in  mind  that  Africa  offers  not 
one  but  many  problems.  Social,  economic,  and 
religious  questions  are  interwoven  in  bewilder- 
ing array.  Any  attempt  at  solution,  moreover, 
is  complicated  by  the  conception  of  the  African 
that  somehow  obtains  throughout  Christendom 
and  that  is  nothing  more  than  a  heritage  from 
four  hundred  years  of  the  enslavement  of  black 
men.    Let  one  speak  of  the  native  African  and 

29 


30  Africa  and  the  War 

there  rises  all  too  frequently  before  the  mind  of 
the  listener  a  picture  of  an  untutored  cannibal, 
savage  and  degraded.  Of  course  such  individu- 
als are  still  to  be  found,  and,  in  a  country  of 
such  vast  extent,  found  by  the  thousands.  Such 
a  conception,  however,  does  no  justice  at  all  to 
the  iron-workers  and  weavers  of  the  South  and 
West,  to  the  aspiring  Zulus,  or  to  the  African 
boy  who,  trained  in  a  mission  school,  was  able 
to  act  as  interpreter  for  two  Europeans  who 
could  not  otherwise  understand  each  other.  We 
have  to  remember  that  in  increasing  numbers 
native  Africans  have  had  the  benefit  of  Euro- 
pean culture,  and  that  those  who  are  educated 
have  begun  to  pass  their  ideals  on  to  their  less 
fortunate  brothers.  In  other  words,  in  all  our 
planning  for  the  new  day  in  which  Africa  is  no 
longer  to  be  the  Dark  Continent,  we  must  re- 
member that  we  are  planning  not  so  much  for 
Africans  as  for  human  beings,  and  that,  while 
these  people  are  largely  backward,  they  still 
are  entitled  to  the  liberty  and  democracy  of 
which  we  have  heard  so  much  and  for  the  acid 
tests  of  which  wB  must  help  to  prepare  them. 

With  thJB  proviso  WB  have  then  to  face  the 
peculiar  difficulti^  in  the  situation.  Those  that 


Special  Problems  and  Difficulties     31 

• 

are  social  strike  us  at  once.  Here  are,  in  a 
rough  estimate,  as  many  as  two  hundred  lan- 
guages and  dialects  to  be  considered  in  any 
large  plan  for  the  internationalizing  of  the  con- 
tinent. Moreover,  many  of  these  people,  in 
spite  of  great  devotion  to  family  ties,  are  still 
living  under  a  system  that  countenances  polyg- 
amy. Here  is  a  problem  that  calls  for  the  utmost 
patience  and  tact.  A  chief,  for  instance,  who 
might  become  converted  to  Christianity,  natu- 
rally has  some  debate  over  the  question  of 
whether  he  is  just  in  putting  away  all  but  one 
of  his  wives,  especially  when  the  women  them- 
selves, bound  by  custom,  are  frequently  the 
strongest  adherents  of  the  system.  Close  to  po- 
lygamy, of  course,  are  various  related  vices,  many 
of  which  are  definitely  encouraged  by  paganism. 
It  is  in  the  sphere  of  religion,  in  fact,  that 
many  of  the  greatest  difficulties  are  focused. 
The  problem  is  now  fourfold.  First  there  is  the 
conflict  between  Christianity  and  piu-e  African 
paganism  and  superstition.  This,  however,  soon 
merges  into  the  sterner  conflict  between  Chris- 
tianity and  Mohammedanism.  Great  work  is  to 
Be  done  here,  for,  as  Prof.  W.  S.  Naylor  has  said, 
*' Islam  has  enough  truth  to  palliate  an  ea^- 


32  Africa  and  the  War 

going  conscience  and  enough  error  to  satisfy  a 
corrupt  heart.''  Moreover,  a  Mohammedan 
who  passes  over  to  another  reUgion  becomes 
practically  ostracized  by  his  former  friends.  In 
the  third  place  there  is  division  between  the  two 
great  branches  of  Christianity,  Catholic  and 
^Protestant,  which  in  Africa  as  elsewhere  have 
all  too  frequently  faced  each  other  as  uncom- 
promising foes.  Finally,  there  is  the  Ethiopian 
Church  Movement  with  the  motto,  '^  Africa  for 
the  Africans."  Somewhat  like  the  African 
Methodist  Episcopal  Church  in  the  United 
States  before  the  Civil  War,  this  organization, 
primarily  religious,  because  it  furnishes  the  best  / 
opportunity  for  assembling  has  become  en- 
larged into  that  one  which  best  encourages  racial 
ideals  and  native  aspiration. 

It  will  be  observed  that  every  one  of  these 
religious  problems  has  been  forced  upon  the 
native  from  the  outside  and  by  people  who  re- 
garded themselves  as  more  fortunate  than  he. 
But  this  is  not  all.  As  Christians  have  ad- 
vanced in  Africa — especially  Boers  and  English- 
men and  Germans — they  have  made  it  more 
and  more  difficult  for  the  native  African  to  have 
genuine  economic  opportunity.     The  personal 


Special  Problems  and  Difficulties     33 

indignities  and  proscription  and  segregation 
imposed  upon  the  natives  surpass  even  the  leg- 
islation of  Southern  states  of  the  United  States, 
and  the  latest  land  act  seems  designed  to  dis- 
possess them  almost  entirely.  Nothing  what- 
ever, however,  has  served  to  keep  the  unscrupu- 
lous trader  from  preying  upon  the  native.  Chief 
assistant  of  the  whole  iniquitous  system  of 
slavery  was  rum.  Even  within  recent  years  the 
Christian  nations  of  the  West  have  annually 
sent  along  with  their  missionaries  ten  million 
gallons  of  liquor  to  aid  in  the  civilizing  of 
Africa.  It  was  some  years  ago  that  Molique, 
King  of  Nupe,  writing  to  Bishop  Crowther,  gave 
the  following  indictment  of  Christianity:  ^^Ba- 
rasa  (rum  or  gin)  has  ruined  our  country.  It 
has  ruined  oiu:  people  very  much.  It  has  made 
our  people  mad.  I  agree  to  everything  for  trade 
except  barasa.  We  heg  Crowther,  the  great 
Christian  minister,  to  heg  the  great  priests  to 
heg  the  English  queen  to  prevent  bringing  barasa 
into  this  land.  For  God's  sake  he  must  help 
us  in  this  matter.  He  must  not  leave  us  to  be- 
come spoiled.''* 

*  Quoted  by  W.  S.  Naylor  in  Daybreak  in  the  Dark  Continent, 
p.  127,  from  Jesse  Page:  Samuel  Crowther, 


S4  Africa  and  the  War 

Such  are  simply  some  of  the  more  outstanding 
problems  that  have  to  be  faced.  On  every  hand 
arise  delicate  questions  of  local  adjustment.  In 
every  case  also  the  native  is  the  chief  factor  to 
be  considered,  and  the  Ethiopian  Movement 
can  hardly  be  over-emphasized.  India,  like 
Egypt,  has  for  years  been  restless  under  a  for- 
eign yoke,  and  it  was  the  deed  of  a  young 
Serbian  that  actually  started  the  world  confla- 
gration. Africa,  too,  has  her  young  idealistic 
class.  An  outstanding  leader  in  the  insurrec- 
tion in  German  Southwest  Africa  in  1903  was 
Henry  Witboi,  a  convert  of  the  Rhenish  Mis- 
sionary Society,  who  felt  that  the  time  had  come 
for  the  deliverance  of  his  people  from  the  con- 
trol of  white  men.  As  Wendell  Phillips  re- 
minded us  years  ago,  such  a  spirit  in  a  white 
man  the  world  has  been  taught  to  call  diplo- 
macy, while  in  a  black  man  it  is  called  hypocrisy. 
While  the  world  is  getting  straight,  however, 
we  may  as  well  face  it  frankly.  If  generously 
handled,  it  may  be  turned  to  great  account;  but 
if  the  treatment  is  otherwise,  untold  strife  is 
stored  up  for  the  future. 


THE   MEANING   FOR  AMERICA 

A  FRICA,  then,  is  the  great  prize  of  the  war. 
l\  A  vast  continent,  the  second  on  the  globe, 
and  the  last  to  yield  to  the  influences  of  civili- 
zation, is  now  to  be  developed  as  never  before. 
When  the  allied  countries  of  Europe  with  the 
aid  of  America  finally  dictate  terms  at  the 
council-board,  it  will  be  to  Africa  that  they  will 
primarily  look  for  the  raw  material  on  which  to 
base  the  rehabilitation  of  their  empires.  When 
that  time  comes  they  will  have  to  remember 
the  part  played  by  the  native  African  in  the 
struggle  for  the  salvation  of  the  world.  The 
disposition  of  this  continent  then  becomes  the 
greatest  economic  and  political  question  to  arise 
out  of  the  present  war  and  even  in  the  twentieth 
century. 

The  problem  becomes  concrete  by  reason  of 
the  possession  by  the  AlUes  of  the  German  col- 

35 


86  Africa  and  the  War 

onies  in  Africa.  Everything  looks  toward  some 
sort  of  international  commission  for  the  conti- 
nent, and  the  discussion  will,  of  course,  be  of 
supreme  importance  in  the  war  settlement.  The 
British  Prime  Minister  said  last  winter  that  at 
present  the  German  colonies  are  *^held  at  the 
disposal  of  a  conference  whose  decision  must 
have  primary  regard  to  the  wishes  and  interests 
of  the  native  inhabitants  of  such  colonies."  A 
little  later  President  Wilson  spoke  of  ^'a  free, 
open-minded,  and  absolutely  impartial  adjust- 
ment of  all  colonial  claims  based  upon  a  strict 
observance  of  the  principle  that  in  determining 
all  such  questions  of  sovereignty  the  interests  of 
the  populations  concerned  must  have  equal 
weight  with  the  equitable  claims  of  the  Govern- 
ment whose  title  is  to  be  determined."  Natu- 
rally, the  franker  acknowledgment  of  native 
African  aspiration  by  the  Prime  Minister  has 
met  with  more  cordial  response  in  the  native 
press  than  the  more  conservative  statement  of 
our  own  President.  Both  utterances,  however, 
look  to  the  future  adjustment  of  the  question. 

Any  disposition  whatsoever  of  course  takes  it 
as  understood  that  Africa  is  not  longer  to  re- 
main in  savagery  and  isolation.    After  thQ  w^r 


The  Meaning  for  America  37 

the  advance  of  science  will  demand  the  highest 
development  of  all  the  land  on  the  globe,  and 
the  most  luxuriant  of  all  is  not  likely  to  be 
passed  by.  Before  we  consider  further  an  inter- 
national conmiission,  however,  it  might  be  safe 
to  remark  one  or  two  other  solutions  which  have 
in  one  way  or  another  been  seriously  proposed. 
One  of  these  involves  a  practical  reversion  to 
the  status  existent  before  the  war.  This  may 
be  dismissed  at  once.  The  Allies  will  never  con- 
sent to  Germany's  holding  a  comer-stone  for  the 
upbuilding  of  her  dreamed-of  African  empire. 
When  efforts  are  being  made  to  curtail  her  eco- 
nomic advance  it  is  not  at  all  likely  that  she 
will  be  permitted  to  retain  her  great  source  of 
raw  materials.*  And  this  is  just,  for  it  is  of 
course  on  an  economic  foundation  that  Germany 
has  built  her  mad  political  visions  and  thus  en- 
dangered the  world.  Again,  the  cry  of  Africa 
for  the  Africans  has  been  raised.     Just  now, 

*  While  these  pages  were  being  made  ready  for  the  press, 
Mr.  Balfour,  British  foreign  secretary,  in  a  noteworthy  ad- 
dress before  representatives  of  Australia  and  New  Zealand, 
October  23,  1918,  declared  that  under  no  circumstances  would 
it  be  consistent  with  the  safety,  security,  and  unity  of  the 
British  Empire  that  Germany^s  colonies  should  be  returned 
to  her. 


38  Africa  and  the  War 

because  this  is  in  large  measure  the  outgrowth 
of  manly  racial  aspiration,  it  calls  for  tact  and 
delicate  handling.  It  must  long  remain  a  dream, 
however.  Theoretically  it  is  a  grave  question  if 
the  nations  of  Christendom  would  really  be 
doing  their  duty  if  in  the  present  state  of  world 
civilization  they  left  this  great  continent  to  the 
natives  who  have  neither  the  education  nor  the 
organization  necessary  for  the  momentous  prob- 
lems of  democratic  government.  There  are  of 
course  hundreds  and  even  thousands  of  Africans 
who  are  educated  or  who  are  rapidly  being  edu- 
cated; but  there  are  also  vast  regions  in  which 
savagery  still  obtains,  and  if  we  take  the  popu- 
lation as  a  whole  we  find  it  altogether  unready  to 
wrestle  with  questions  of  the  best  form  of  gov- 
ernment for  themselves  and  their  children's 
children.  Even  if  such  a  settlement  were  theo- 
retically sound,  it  is  at  present  impracticable. 
After  all  they  have  won  in  this  great  continent 
and  after  all  they  have  suffered  in  the  war,  it 
is  not  likely  that  England  and  France  will  vol- 
untarily withdraw  from  Africa  at  any  time  in 
the  near  future  or  suffer  such  a  disposition  of 
the  German  colonies  as  would  endanger  them- 
selves; nor  will  the  United  States  expect  them 


The  Meaning  for  America  39 

to  do  so.  Some  generations  hence  the  world 
may  not  unreasonably  welcome  into  the  family 
of  nations  some  great  self-governing  Negro  or 
Bantu  states  in  Central  Africa;  but  such  a  con- 
summation could  come  only  after  education  had 
had  the  freest  possible  play  with  the  great  mass 
of  the  population.  If  then  Germany's  colonies 
are  not  to  be  given  back  to  her  and  if  they  are 
not  at  once  to  be  self-governing,  we  come  back 
to  the  idea  of  an  international  commission. 

In  this  disposition  by  international  tribunal 
we  can  not  too  much  emphasize  the  need  of 
careful  planning  for  the  future  development  of 
the  natives  of  the  continent.  Too  long  has 
Africa  been  the  prey  of  the  powers.  The  hor- 
rors of  two  hundred  and  fifty  years  of  the  slave- 
trade  are  still  to  be  recalled.  Mutilated  men 
and  women  are  still  to  be  seen  in  the  Belgian 
Congo;  and  in  South  Africa,  by  Englishman 
and  Boer  alike,  the  native  is  daily  subjected  to 
the  most  grievous  indignities  prompted  by  race 
prejudice.  It  would  be  the  crime  of  the  ages  if, 
after  fighting  the  greatest  war  in  history  for  the 
freedom  of  all  people,  and  in  the  face  of  the 
supreme  appeal  to  their  chivalry,  the  foremost 
nations  of  the  world  should  make  of  this  sad 


Jfi  Africa  and  the  War 

continent,  so  wonderful  in  its  possibilities,  the 
latest  field  for  selfishness,  exploitation  and 
racial  animosity.  They  must  not  do  so.  They 
will  not. 

We  may  then  reasonably  expect  some  form 
of  an  international  protectorate  over  the  Ger- 
man colonies.  If,  however,  the  Allies  work  to- 
gether in  the  development  of  some  colonies,  they 
must  necessarily  work  together  more  eflSciently 
for  the  development  of  all  colonies.  In  other 
words,  England  and  France,  the  chief  possessors, 
and  America,  whose  aid  really  decided  the  war, 
will  find  themselves  working  together  in  coloni- 
zation, missions,  and  education  on  a  scale  never 
before  contemplated,  for  in  the  interest  of 
economy  all  effort  will  be  co-ordinated  as  much 
as  possible.  Aims  will  be  similar,  and  the  ex- 
perience of  one  nation  will  help  another.  As  a 
field  for  the  working  of  the  principle  of  inter- 
nationalism the  opportunity  now  afforded  in 
Africa  is  unprecedented. 

Again  the  native.  What  is  it  that  the  African 
needs  more  than  anything  else  just  now? 
Education,  Christian  education — the  education 
given  by  missionaries,  but  also  something 
broader  than  that,  something  that  will  not  only 


The  Meaning  for  America  4i 

be  thoroughly  Christian  but  so  adapted  as  to 
make  the  African  an  intelUgent  citizen  in  his 
commonwealth,  trained  in  mechanics,  farming, 
engineering,  or  even  in  the  professions,  especially 
medicine,  as  the  case  might  require.  Let  the 
native  but  catch  a  vision  of  his  possibilities  and 
he  will  work  with  enthusiasm.  But  the  era  is 
not  one  for  those  who  are  futilely  educated  or 
who  look  for  easy  jobs.  Africa  has  seen  too  many 
men  of  that  sort  already.  What  she  now  needs 
supremely  is  men  who  can  apply  what  they 
know. 

But  who  is  actually  to  do  the  work?  Strange 
are  the  workings  of  history.  It  so  happens  that 
America,  the  United  States,  that  has  no  land  at 
all  in  Africa,  nevertheless  has  the  workers  so 
badly  needed  by  her  allies.  With  so  much  to 
be  done  at  home,  England  and  France  will  after 
the  war  find  it  extremely  difficult  to  spare  men 
for  colonial  service.  Moreover,  in  spite  of  the 
merits  of  these  powers  in  colonization,  their 
men  are  hardly  so  well  adapted  for  the  task  in 
hand  as  those  who  could  bring  to  their  work  of 
teaching  or  farming  or  bridge-building  the  in- 
spiring contact  of  closer  racial  interest.  The 
American  Negro,  then,  so  long  proscribed,  sud- 


42  Africa  and  the  War 

denly  looms  up  as  one  of  the  nation's  most  im- 
portant assets.  His  record  as  a  fighting-man  is 
well  known.  Within  the  last  three  years  he 
has  very  largely  had  to  fill  the  gap  made  in 
industrial  pursuits  in  the  North  by  the  sudden 
ceasing  of  immigration.  To  him  now  also  Africa 
calls,  calls  for  workers  not  by  the  scores,  not  by 
the  hundreds,  but  by  the  thousands  and  tens 
of  thousands.  The  demand  is  without  parallel, 
the  opportunity  for  the  race  impressive,  and  the 
duty  resting  upon  England  and  America  to 
train  and  marshal  the  workers  absolutely  im- 
perative. 

This  leads  us  to  inquire  as  to  just  what  it  is 
that  is  needed  and  just  what  are  the  facilities 
for  the  training  of  young  men  and  women  of 
the  Negro  race  for  a  program  of  service  of  such 
magnitude.  We  need  for  this  work  teachers  or 
directors  who  have  had  the  most  thorough,  the 
most  severe,  the  most  exact  training  possible, 
and  who  are  able  to  bring  to  their  task  the 
necessary  philosophical  outlook.  We  recall 
Bacon's  distinction  between  truly  learned  men 
and  those  who  are  simply  expert  (that  is,  experi- 
enced in  the  mechanics  of  a  given  craft) :  ''Ex- 
pert men  can  execute,  and  perhaps  judge  of 


The  Meaning  for  America  4S 

particulars,  one  by  one;  but  the  general  coun- 
sels, and  the  plots  and  marshalling  of  affairs, 
come  best  from  those  that  are  learned."  This 
distinction  needs  to  be  made  now.  Not  every- 
body who  might  apply  could  be  used.  Initia- 
tive, poise,  resourcefulness,  reliability,  teaching 
ability,  good  health,  and  Christian  spirit  all 
become  important  assets.  Possessing  these,  the 
worker  must  also  be  acquainted  with  his  trade  or 
profession  from  every  angle.  Only  teachers,  en- 
gineers, or  physicians  with  such  thorough  train- 
ing could  do  the  work  required. 

Obviously  efficient  workers  according  to  this 
standard  could  be  found  only  among  college 
graduates  or  those  who  have  an  equivalent  of 
college  work  in  normal  or  technical  training.  As 
we  look  over  the  schools  in  the  South  we  find 
these  sadly  lacking  in  facilities  for  the  work  in 
hand.  Too  strong  a  line  exists  between  the  rep- 
resentative colleges  and  the  industrial  schools, 
when  the  task  now  imposed  would  call  for  a 
combination  of  the  best  features  of  both  sys- 
tems. No  one  of  the  colleges  is  adequately 
endowed  even  for  its  task  with  its  American 
constituency,  to  say  nothing  of  a  great  new  de- 
mand;   while  the  industrial  schools  are  from 


44  Africa  and  the  War 

five  to  seven  years  below  the  standard.  How, 
for  instance,  would  a  graduate  from  one  of  them 
compare  with  the  graduate  in  electricity  or 
engineering  or  chemistry  from  the  Massachu- 
setts Institute  of  Technology?  And  yet,  for  the 
work  now  to  be  done  we  need  the  standard  of 
this  institution. 

The  necessary  agency  might  be  found  in  one 
central  training  school,  or  in  two  or  three  of  the 
best  colleges  so  equipped  in  special  departments 
as  to  give  free  play  for  the  best  technological 
features,  or  two  or  three  of  the  industrial 
schools  raised  to  the  standard  of  the  best  col- 
leges. In  general,  the  present  college  student 
would  in  most  cases  have  to  make  his  training 
more  thorough  and  learn  to  apply  it  better, 
while  the  industrial  student  would  certainly 
have  to  lay  a  broader  foundation  in  general 
culture. 

It  will  be  observed  that  we  have  not  consid- 
ered the  matter  simply  from  the  missionary 
standpoint.  In  no  case  could  this  be  ignored, 
but  in  its  last  analysis  the  problem  is  one  not 
only  in  missions  but  also  in  world  politics  and 
general  education. 

4:  4e  ^  4*  4b 


The  Meaning  for  America  43 

These  were  God's  chosen  people.  Never  did 
a  nation  wrong  them  but  that  the  judgment  of 
the  Lord  overtook  it.  England  trafficked  in 
them  and  lost  the  richest  of  her  dominions. 
America  enslaved  them  and  bled  through  four 
years  of  civil  war.  The  Boers  oppressed  them 
and  lost  their  independence.  Belgium  muti- 
lated them  and  witnessed  her  fields  made  deso- 
late. Germany  harassed  them  and  the  hour  of 
her  destiny  struck  twelve.  Just  because  they 
are  poor  and  untutored  and  unorganized,  let  us 
take  warning  for  the  future.  '^Woe  unto  the 
world  because  of  offenses,  for  it  must  needs  be 
that  offenses  come;  but  woe  to  that  man  by 
whom  the  offense  cometh !' ' 


SUPPLEMENTARY   CHAPTERS 


THE   FREEDOM   OF  THE   FREE 

WHEN  the  people  of  Jehovah  to  the  Prom- 
ised Land  would  go, 
They  were  given  a  valiant  leader  for  the  con- 
flict with  the  foe; 
But  they  wandered  many  weary  years  and 

faced  the  raging  sea, 
Ere   their   children   won   the  harvest   of  the 
Freedom  of  the  Free. 


When  the  black  men  of  the  wilderness  were 
wanted  of  the  Lord, 

From  America  to  Europe  flashed  the  word  with 
one  accord; 

And  the  Christian  nations  hankered  for  the 
glitter  of  the  gain. 

And  the  screaming  of  the  eagle  dulled  the  clank- 
ing of  the  chain. 

49 


60  Africa  and  the  War 

But  the  captive  on  the  slaver's  deck  beneath 

the  lightning's  flash — 
Unto  him  were  only  scourging  and  the  stinging 

of  the  lash; 
But  such  things  as  these  must  be,  they  say, 

and  such  the  pruning  be, 
Ere  our  children  win  the  harvest  of  the  Freedom 

of  the  Free. 

Far  across  the  deep  Atlantic  speeds  the  vessel 

on  its  way, 
And  the  nights  are  wild  with  weeping  and  the 

days  with  tempests  gray, 
Till  at  length  within  the  glory  of  the  dawn 

the  shore  appears, 
And  the  slave  takes  up  the  battle  and  the 

burden  of  the  years. 

In  the  fury  of  the  auction  runs  the  clamor  on 

and  on: 
''Going!    Going!     Who  bids  higher?     Going! 

Going !    Going !    Gone !' ' 
And  the  mocking-bird  is  singing,  and  the  lilies 

dance  in  glee. 
And  the  slave  alone  is  sighing  for  the  Freedom 

of  the  Free. 


The  Freedom  of  the  Free  51 

Now  the  wide  plantation  shimmers  in  the  fresh- 
ness of  the  morn, 

And  the  dusky  workers  scatter  in  the  cotton 
and  the  corn, 

With  the  problem  of  the  ages  in  the  yearning 
of  their  eyes. 

While  the  slave  whip  sings  forever  underneath 
the  azure  skies. 

In  the  silence  of  the  night  and  from  the  weird 

assembled  throng 
Comes  the  beauty  and  the  wailing  of  the  dirge 

and  Sorrow  Song: 
^'IVe  been  listenin'  all  the  night  long  for  to 

hear  some  sinner  pray; 
IVe  been  waitin'  all  the  night  long  for  the 

breakin'  of  the  day." 

Till  at  length  from  Maine  to  Mexico  peals  out 

the  trumpet  blast, 
And  a  wild  expectant  nation  at  the  fmy  stands 

aghast ; 
While  the  young  men  in  their  glory  feel  the 

fever  of  the  fight. 
And  the  blood  drops  of  the  firstborn  stain  thq 

doorposts  in  the  night. 


62  Africa  and  the  War 

In  the  crimson  of  the  carnage,  in  the  deluge  of 
the  flame, 

Come  the  black  men  to  the  trenches  for  the 
honor  and  the  name; 

And  they  sell  their  life-blood  dearly  for  Human- 
ity's decree    • 

That  their  sons  should  have  the  fullness  of  the 
Freedom  of  the  Free. 

Now  a  nation's  second  birthday  blossoms  from 

the  gloom  of  night. 
And  a  people  stands  bewildered  at  the  dawning 

of  the  light; 
But  the  untried  hands  are  willing,  and  the 

hearts  are  ever  true 
To  the  call  of  home  and  country  and  the  faith 

the  fathers  knew. 

But  the  tempter  whispers  ever  with  monotonous 

refrain 
That  the  struggle  and  the  striving  and  the 

faith  are  all  in  vain; 
But  from  woodland,  sea,  and  mountain  peak 

th'  eternal  years  reply: 
*' Better  strive  and  fight  like  brave  men  than 

like  cowards  yield  and  die." 


The  Freedom  of  the  Free 


53 


Let  us  heed  no  tale  of  Anak  or  Philistine  in 

the  land; 
Let  us  hear  the  word  from  Sinai  and  Jehovah's 

high  command; 
Worship  not  the  Golden  Calf  nor  unto  Baal 

bend  the  knee, 
That  our  sons  may  rise  triumphant  in  the 

Freedom  of  the  Free. 


II 


WYCLIFFE   AND   THE   WORLD   WAR 

IT  is  now  six  hundred  years  since  John 
WycUffe  was  born.  The  exact  centenary 
will  occur  in  1920,  or  perhaps  as  much  as  four 
years  later — nobody  knows  when.  What  we 
do  know,  however,  is  that  this  man  seems  to 
have  held  within  himself  the  key  to  every 
great  thought  or  noble  impulse  that  has  moved 
the  world  in  modern  times,  and  that  to-day  we 
are  more  than  ever  working  toward  the  realiza- 
tion of  his  dreams. 

Few  great  figures  stand  out  on  the  page  of 
history  in  such  absolute  loneliness.  His  early 
years  are  a  blank,  and  the  student  of  his  life 
is  impressed  by  a  strange  absence  of  family 
connections.  We  know  that  he  spent  his  best 
years  in  the  tradition  of  Oxford  and  that  he 
became  incomparably  skilled  in  dialectic.  He 
was  Master  of  Balliol,  formed  for  a  season  a 

54 


Wy cliff e  and  the  World  War         66 

political  alliance  with  John  of  Gaunt,  and  had 
some  large  part  in  the  translation  of  the  Bible 
that  bears  his  name;  but  of  the  man  himself 
we  know  almost  nothing.  Of  personal  interests 
he  seems  to  have  had  almost  none.  He  wrote 
thousands  and  thousands  of  pages,  but  always 
objectively — about  the  Papacy,  the  relations  of 
Church  and  State,  the  Eucharist,  but  never 
about  himself.  His  friends,  those  that  he  had, 
were  bound  to  him  primarily  by  an  intellectual 
kinship.  Ever  was  he  the  seer — the  teacher, 
aloof  from  those  he  instructed.  His  very  theory 
of  liberty  is  more  like  the  philosophical  ideal  of 
the  French  than  the  emotional  impulse  for 
freedom  in  America.  Nevertheless  he  still  re- 
mains the  greatest  exponent  of  hberty  in  the 
history  of  Elngland ;  and  the  superlative  is  used 
advisedly. 

He  was  ahead  of  his  age  and  yet  intensely 
of  it.  Professor  Kittredge  has  reminded  us* 
of  the  peculiar  ^^modernness''  of  the  time  into 
which  he  was  thrown.  The  mature  years  of  the 
reformer  were  cast  in  a  period  remarkable  even 
in  the  history  of  England  for  the  far-reaching 
effect  of  its  events.    Into  the  decade  between 

*  Chaucer  and  his  Poetry,  1-5. 


56  Africa  and  the  War 

1375  and  1385  fell  the  work  of  the  '^Good 
Parliament/'  noteworthy  for  its  original  use  of 
the  power  of  impeachment;  the  death  of  the 
Black  Prince,  with  all  the  politics  attending 
that  event;  the  Great  Schism  in  the  Papacy; 
the  Peasants'  Revolt;  Wycliffe's  three  trials  and 
his  translation  of  the  Bible.  Almost  every  great 
social  question  that  agitates  us  to-day  was 
under  discussion  in  1382.  It  was  an  age  of 
intense  activity,  of  labor  troubles,  of  change  in 
the  art  of  war,  of  radicalism  in  religion,  of  im- 
perialism in  Church  and  State,  and  even  of 
^Hrouble  in  the  Balkans."  We  cite  just  one 
instance  of  the  Uberalism  of  the  period,  the 
spirit  of  Oxford  that  did  so  much  to  make 
Wycliffe's  resistance  possible.  When  the  re- 
former had  incurred  the  disfavor  of  Gregory 
XI,  the  University  was  enjoined  *'for  the  future 
not  to  permit  to  be  asserted  or  proposed  to  any 
extent  whatever,  the  opinions,  conclusions,  and 
propositions  which  are  at  variance  with  good 
morals  and  faith,''  and  to  have  'Hhe  said 
John"  arrested  and  sent  to  the  Archbishop  of 
Canterbury  or  to  the  Bishop  of  London.  The 
congregation,  however,  voted  that  it  was  illegal 
to  arrest  an  English  subject  on  the  authority 


Wycliffe  and  the  World  War         67 

of  a  papal  bull,  '^  since  that  would  be  giving 
the  Pope  lordship  and  regal  power  in  England." 
Such  an  attitude  was  not  altogether  new,  of 
coiu-se,  nor  was  Wycliffe  himself  an  unheralded 
phenomenon.  Even  his  opposition  to  the  ortho- 
dox position  on  transubstantiation  had  been 
anticipated,  if  not  in  England,  on  the  continent 
at  least,  by  Berengar  of  Tours  as  early  as  the 
middle  of  the  eleventh  century.  His  general 
questioning  attitude,  however,  toward  the  func- 
tion of  the  Papacy,  his  opposition  to  the  ex- 
emption of  ecclesiastical  persons  from  lay  con- 
trol, and  his  insistence  on  the  injury  done  to 
the  clergy  by  its  great  wealth  and  by  the  abuse 
of  the  power  of  exconnnunication  for  political 
reasons,  are  to  be  accounted  for  only  by  the 
character  and  genius  of  the  English  people. 
From  the  reign  of  William  I  to  that  of  Richard 
II  history  shows  a  series  of  contests  or  opinions 
that  not  only  accounted  for  the  parson  of  Lut- 
terworth, but  that  are  so  interwoven  that  it  is 
difficult  to  say  where  the  influence  of  one  ends 
and  that  of  another  begins.  Outstanding  as  a 
forerunner  of  course  was  Grosseteste,  who  even 
in  the  thirteenth  century  was  able  to  summon 
the  great  heart  of  England  in  his  opposition  tQ 


68  Africa  and  the  War 

the  '' dispensations,  provisions,  and  collations'' 
of  the  Papacy;  but  Grosseteste  was  followed  by 
Occam  and  Fitzralph  and  Bradwardine. 

Even  with  such  a  tradition  as  this,  however, 
what  was  it  that  impelled  Wycliffe  to  take  the 
advanced  position  he  did?  What  was  it  that 
led  him  to  risk  not  only  his  standing  but  his 
life,  and  not  only  his  life  but  his  final  appeal  to 
history,  on  the  issues  of  liberty  and  democracy? 
Nothing  less  than  his  unbounded  faith  in  hu- 
manity. The  root  of  the  social  question  in  his 
day  was  of  course  the  economic  problem;  and 
this  went  back  to  the  position  of  the  Church, 
the  greatest  landholder  in  the  world.  First  of 
all  the  Church  had  moved  under  the  fine  inspi- 
ration of  a  new  faith.  There  was  struggle;  there 
was  suffering.  After  three  hundred  years  of 
the  Christian  era,  however,  such  were  its  or- 
ganization and  its  universality  of  appeal  that 
it  ceased  to  be  on  the  defensive  and  became  the 
state  religion.  Three  centuries  more,  and  we 
witness  it  full  blown  as  a  great  political  institu- 
tion. It  dominated  council-boards  and  kings. 
It  grew  rich.  Men  and  women  came  into  the 
fold,  bringing  their  worldly  possessions  with 
them.    Sometimes  scores  of  slaves,  or  hundreds, 


WycUffe  and  the  World  War        69 

would  be  given  or  won  with  a  great  estate. 
What  then  did  the  Church  become,  in  France, 
in  England,  but  the  greatest  of  feudal  lords? 
And  all  the  while  of  course  it  was  exempt  from 
taxation.  What  chance  had  the  small  farmer 
against  such  a  competitor? 

Side  by  side  with  the  Church  developed  the 
aristocratic  institution  of  chivalry.  Knights 
went  on  the  Crusades ;  and  the  Church,  Feudal- 
ism, and  Chivalry  became  indissolubly  linked 
in  the  domination  respectively  of  the  religious, 
the  economic,  and  the  social  life  of  the  Western 
world.  Never  was  an  ideal  more  limited  than 
that  of  chivalry.  The  knight  might  fight  val- 
iantly to  win  the  rewards  of  courtly  love;  but 
for  the  worker  in  the  fields  he  cared  not  at 
all.  Ladyhood  meant  everything  to  him,  wom- 
anhood little  or  nothing;  and  such  were  the 
ideals  that  dominated  England  for  hundreds  of 
years.  / 

All  of  this  Wycliffe  saw.  The  hypocrisy,  the 
hoUowness,  of  it  all,  none  knew  better  than  he. 
He  saw  the  Church  dole  out  its  pittance  of 
charity  to  the  hundreds  of  its  poor  when  it 
really  made  paupers  by  the  thousands.  He 
knew  that,  wittingly  or   unwittingly,  it  was 


60  Africa  and  the  War 

making  for  the  degradation  of  the  individual, 
and  he  knew,  too,  that  no  great  landholding, 
slave-driving  institution  could  be  truly  repre- 
sentative of  the  Christ.  Unless  the  very  theory 
of  the  divine  right  of  the  Pope  could  be  under- 
mined, he  saw  no  hope  for  the  slave.  The  images 
in  the  church,  the  candlesticks,  the  pilgrimages 
to  the  tombs  of  saints — all  these  things  came  to 
savor  of  idolatry  to  him.  He  might  not  have 
been  the  real  inspirer  of  the  rude  rhymes  of 
John  Ball,  but  he  certainly  sympathized  with 
them.  How  can  we  wonder  that  he  recoiled  at 
the  idea  that  any  drunken  priest  could  by  a  word 
manufacture  the  body  of  Christ? 

At  any  rate,  he  set  himself  against  all  the 
tradition  of  his  age.  When  he  formulated  his 
theory  of  Church  and  State,  the  religious  dig- 
nitaries frowned.  When  he  molded  his  ideas  for 
the  reforming  of  the  Church  itself,  the  Pope 
commanded  that  he  be  silenced.  When  he 
moved  still  fiu'ther  to  an  attack  on  dogma, 
even  the  common  people  considered  him  blas- 
phemous, though  they  then  understood  him 
least  of  all.  He  was  willing  to  suffer,  however, 
even  when  those  whom  he  sought  to  help 
could  not  understand  him — and  this  not  sim- 


Wycliffe  and  the  World  War        61 

ply  on  the  narrow  basis  of  patriotism,  for 
he  was  soon  at  war  with  Urban  VI  as  well  as 
Clement  VII. 

Something  of  all  that  was  wrong  in  the  world 
the  great  Dante  had  seen  and  felt  a  hundred 
years  before.  In  Wycliffe's  own  day  Gower 
wrote  his  *^Vox  Clamantis,"  Langland  cried  in 
the  wilderness,  and  Chaucer  realized  that  the 
times  were  out  of  joint.  Chaucer,  however, 
refused  to  wear  his  heart  on  his  sleeve,  shrugged 
his  shoulders,  and  laughed  himself  into  the 
second  class  of  poets.  But  ever  since  the  four- 
teenth century  the  question  has  been  revived: 
Do  we  really  believe  in  democracy,  in  the  full 
freedom  of  all  men  and  women,  and  are  we 
willing  to  act  on  our  belief? 

The  question  was  a  vital  one  throughout  the 
nineteenth  century.  Macaulay  placed  himself 
squarely  on  the  side  of  the  people,  and  Carlyle 
as  sturdily  represented  the  opposition.  Garrison 
and  Phillips  and  Sumner  believed  in  the  possi- 
bilities of  the  slave  even  before  he  had  learned 
to  believe  in  himself;  and  into  the  Civil  War 
fell  the  great  issue  of  democracy  like  that  of 
free  labor,  free  speech,  and  every  other  great 
question  of  politics  or  society.     Professor  W.  E. 


62  Africa  and  the  War 

Dodd  has  recently  shown  us*  how  the  social 
philosophy  of  the  old  South  gradually  crystal- 
lized into  that  of  an  aristocracy  that  had  to  be 
defended  at  all  costs,  by  churchmen  and  states- 
men alike.  In  such  a  society  Walter  Scott  natu- 
rally became  the  most  popular  author,  for  he 
best  portrayed  the  snobbery  that  masqueraded 
under  the  name  of  chivalry.  The  whole  system 
was  built  on  one  great  fallacy,  the  denial  of  the 
freedom  of  the  human  soul.  Not  all  men  were 
to  rule  or  vote,  but  only  those  owning  property. 
Not  all  were  to  be  educated  at  the  public  ex- 
pense, while  ^^hard  labor  was  for  those  whose 
hands  were  hard.'^  Thus  was  developed  in  the 
nineteenth  century  in  the  greatest  republic  in 
the  world  a  feudalism  that  was  from  the  stand- 
point of  the  serf  quite  as  hopeless  as  that  of  the 
Middle  Ages.  Naturally  it  left  a  long  train  of 
abuses;  but  worst  of  all  were  the  prejudices 
and  fallacies  that  it  left  in  men's  minds.  Even 
to-day  some  politicians  and  writers  bewail  the 
so-called  grave  error  that  forced  Negro  suffrage 
on  the  South,  when  there  was  no  other  logical 
course  out  of  the  dilemma.  Ignorance  and  lack 
of  culture  might  be  temporary;  a  few  years  of 

*  American  Journal  of  Sociology,  May,  1918. 


WycUffe  and  the  World  War        63 

training  could  remedy  them:  but  the  principles 
on  which  the  American  republic  was  founded 
were  to  be  eternal.  This  Sumner  saw,  and  this 
Wycliffe  would  have  seen  had  he  been  living  in 
1865. 

By  the  end  of  the  Civil  War,  however,  other 
grave  social  questions  had  already  forced  them- 
selves on  the  attention  of  the  American  people. 
The  great  stream  of  European  immigration  had 
set  in.  By  the  tens,  then  the  hundreds  of  thou- 
sands, and  then  at  the  rate  of  a  million  a  year, 
we  saw  the  poorer  folk  of  Europe  clasping 
America  as  the  Promised  Land.  Before  long 
the  oppressed  Jew,  the  unhappy  Pole,  and  the 
Southern  Italian,  as  well  as  the  ignorant  Negro, 
had  become  a  very  vital  part  of  our  population. 
The  older  inhabitants  glanced  at  the  "scum  of 
the  earth"  and  moved  uptown.  More  and 
more,  however,  the  newcomers  gained  a  foot- 
ing, and  they  very  nearly  took  possession  of 
both  Boston  and  New  York.  "Out  where  the 
West  begins,^'  however,  in  Chicago — ^raw,  noisy, 
material,  but  soulful  Chicago — the  work  of 
Americanization  went  forward.  Somehow  a  lit- 
tle more  than  in  the  East  the  immigrant  devel- 
oped hope.    His  son  became  a  man  of  business; 


64  Africa  and  the  War 

his  daughter  graduated  from  the  University. 
The  development,  however,  was  not  to  be  un- 
hampered. The  agitator  was  present,  the  first 
faith  in  the  new  country  was  sometimes  under- 
mined, and  Chicago  became  the  home  of  in- 
dustrial unrest. 

To-day  we  stand  at  the  parting  of  the  ways. 
The  Germany  that  we  fight  is  the  very  incar- 
nation of  autocracy — of  medievahsm.  For 
the  freedom  of  the  individual  soul  for  which 
Wycliffe  labored  there  is  no  place  at  all  under  a 
power  that  grinds  everything  under  the  crushing 
heel  of  militarism.  That  in  any  great  civilized 
country  to-day  the  ruler  should  actually  work 
upon  the  theory  of  the  divine  right  of  kings  is 
the  most  stupendous  phenomenon  in  the  world. 
Even  Germany's  philosophers  have  shown  us 
that  they  are  not  free  to  do  their  own  thinking. 
As  we  go  forth  to  meet  such  a  power — to  shatter 
such  a  philosophy — we  need  a  faith  in  humanity, 
in  the  ultimate  destiny  of  the  republic,  greater 
than  the  bounds  of  any  mere  race  or  section. 
The  Revolution  gave  us  independence;  the 
Civil  War  gave  us  freedom;  the  great  war  now 
upon  us  is  to  make  us  a  nation.  Sometimes 
people  are  not  so  clean,  so  refined,  so  learned, 


Wydiffe  and  the  World  War        65 

as  we  are;  but  a  little  sympathy,  a  little  patriot- 
ism, a  little  tact  and  intelligence  can  work  won- 
ders. Nothing  now  will  serve  for  the  new  issues 
but  insight,  patience,  and  a  genuine  conception 
of  democracy.  As  our  sons  or  our  brothers 
fight  or  fall  in  France,  the  same  flag  is  over  all ; 
its  folds  are  broad  enough  to  cover  all.  It  knows 
no  longer  Anglo-Saxons,  or  Italians,  or  Negroes, 
or  Jews,  but  Americans — ^Americans  working 
toward  one  end — the  assurance  of  democracy, 
the  triumph  of  human  freedom,  the  salvation 
of  mankind. 

This  is  the  message  of  Wycliffe  to  a  nation 
and  a  world  at  war. 


Ill 

LORENZO   DOW* 

THIS  is  the  record  of  a  remarkable  and 
eccentric  man  who  devoted  himself  to  a 
life  of  singular  labor  and  self-denial.  In  any 
consideration  of  the  South  one  could  not  avoid 
giving  at  least  passing  notice  to  Lorenzo  Dow 
as  the  foremost  itinerant  preacher  of  his  time, 
as  the  first  Protestant  who  expounded  the  gospel 

*  Very  little  has  been  written  about  Lorenzo  Dow.  There 
is  an  article  by  Emily  S.  Oilman  in  the  New  England  Magazine^ 
Vol.  20,  p.  411  (June,  1899),  and  also  one  by  J.  H.  Kennedy 
in  the  Magazine  of  Western  History ,  Vol.  7,  p.  162.  The  present 
paper  is  based  mainly  upon  the  following  works:  (1)  ^'Biogra- 
phy and  Miscellany,"  published  by  Lorenzo  Dow,  Norwich, 
Conn.,  1834;  (2)  ^'History  of  Cosmopolite;"  or  "The  Four 
Volumes  of  Lorenzo  Dow^s  Journal  concentrated  in  one,  con- 
taining his  Experience  and  Travels,"  Wheehng,  1848;  (3) 
*'The  Dealings  of  God,  Man,  and  the  Devil;  as  exemphfied 
in  the  Life,  Experience,  and  Travels  of  Lorenzo  Dow,"  2  vols, 
in  one.  With  an  Introductory  Essay  by  the  Rev.  John  Dow- 
ling,  D.D.,  of  New  York.  Cincinnati,  1858.  The  present 
paper  first  appeared  in  the  shape  of  two  articles  in  the  Metho^ 
dist  Review  and  the  Journal  of  Negro  History, 

66 


Lorenzo  Dow  67 

in  Alabama  and  Mississippi,  and  as  a  reformer 
who  at  the  very  moment  when  cotton  was  be- 
ginning to  be  supreme,  presumed  to  tell  the 
South  that  slavery  was  wrong. 

He  arrests  attention — this  gaunt,  restless 
preacher.  With  his  long  hair — his  flowing  beard, 
his  harsh  voice,  and  his  wild  gesticulation,  he 
was  so  rude  and  unkempt  as  to  startle  all  con- 
servative hearers.  Said  one  of  his  opponents: 
'^His  manners  (are)  clownish  in  the  extreme; 
his  habit  and  appearance  more  filthy  than  a 
savage  Indian,  his  public  discourses  a  mere 
rhapsody,  the  substance  often  an  insult  upon 
the  gospel.''  Said  another  as  to  his  preaching 
in  Richmond:  ''Mr.  Dow's  clownish  manners, 
his  heterodox  and  schismatic  proceedings,  and 
his  reflections  against  the  Methodist  Episcopal 
Church,  in  a  late  production  of  his  on  church 
government,  are  impositions  on  conamon  sense, 
and  furnish  the  principal  reasons  why  he  will  be 
discountenanced  by  the  Methodists.'' 

But  he  was  made  in  the  mold  of  heroes.  In 
his  lifetime  he  traveled  not  less  than  two  hun- 
dred thousand  miles,  preaching  to  more  people 
than  any  other  man  of  his  time.  He  went  from 
New  England  to  the  extremities  of  the  Union 


68  Africa  and  the  War 

in  the  West  again  and  again.  Several  times  he 
went  to  Canada,  once  to  the  West  Indies,  and 
three  times  to  England,  everywhere  drawing 
great  crowds  about  him.  Friend  of  the  op- 
pressed, he  knew  no  path  but  that  of  duty. 
Evangel  to  the  pioneer,  he  again  and  again  left 
the  haunts  of  men  to  seek  the  western  wilder- 
ness. Conversant  with  the  Scriptures,  intolerant 
of  wrong,  witty  and  brilliant,  he  assembled  his 
hearers  by  the  thousands.  What  can  account  for 
so  unusual  a  character?  What  were  the  motives 
that  prompted  this  man  to  so  extraordinary 
and  laborious  a  life? 

Lorenzo  Dow  was  born  October  16,  1777,  in 
Coventry,  Tolland  County,  Connecticut.  When 
not  yet  four  years  old,  he  tells  us,  one  day  while 
at  play  he  ''suddenly  fell  into  a  muse  about  God 
and  those  places  called  heaven  and  hell.''  Once 
he  killed  a  bird  and  was  horrified  for  days  at 
the  act.  Later  he  won  a  lottery  prize  of  nine 
shillings  and  experienced  untold  remorse.  An 
illness  at  the  age  of  twelve  gave  him  the  short- 
ness of  breath  from  which  he  suffered  more  and 
more  throughout  his  life.  About  this  time  he 
dreamed  that  the  Prophet  Nathan  came  to  him 
and  told  him  that  he  would  live  only  until  he 


Lorenzo  Dow  69 

was  two-and-twenty.  When  thirteen  he  had 
another  dream,  this  time  of  an  old  man,  John 
Wesley,  who  showed  to  him  the  beauties  of 
heaven  and  held  out  the  promise  that  he  would 
win  if  he  was  faithful  to  the  end.  A  few  years 
afterwards  came  to  the  town  Hope  Hull, 
preaching  ''This  is  a  faithful  saying,  and  worthy 
of  all  acceptation,  that  Christ  Jesus  came  into 
the  world  to  save  sinners'';  and  Lorenzo  said: 
''I  thought  he  told  me  all  that  ever  I  did." 
The  next  day  the  future  evangelist  was  con- 
verted. 

But  he  was  to  be  no  ordinary  Christian,  this 
Lorenzo.  Not  satisfied  with  his  early  baptism, 
he  had  the  ceremony  repeated,  and  with  twelve 
others  formed  a  society  for  mutual  watch  and 
helpfulness.  At  the  age  of  eighteen  he  had  still 
another  dream,  this  time  seeing  a  brittle  thread 
in  the  air  suspended  by  a  voice  saying,  ''Woe 
unto  you  if  you  preach  not  the  gospel."  Then 
Wesley  himself  appeared  again  to  him  in  a  dream 
and  warned  him  to  set  out  at  once  upon  his 
mission. 

The  young  candidate  applied  to  the  Con- 
necticut Conference  of  the  Methodist  Church. 
He   met   with   a   reception   that   would  have 


10  Africa  and  the  War 

daunted  any  man  less  courageous.  He  best  tells 
the  story  himself :  ' '  My  brethren  sent  me  home. 
Warren  and  Greenwich  circuits,  in  Rhode 
Island,  were  the  first  of  my  career.  I  obeyed, 
but  with  a  sorrowful  heart.  Went  out  a  second 
time  to  New  Hampshire,  but  sent  home  again; 
I  obeyed.  Afterwards  went  to  Conference  by 
direction — who  rejected  me,  and  sent  me  home 
again;  and  again  I  obeyed.  Was  taken  out  by 
P.  W.  on  to  Orange  circuit,  but  in  1797  was  sent 
home  again;  so  in  obedience  to  man  I  went 
home  a  fourth  time.'' 

As  a  matter  of  fact  there  was  much  in  the 
argument  of  the  church  against  Lorenzo  Dow 
at  this  time.  The  young  preacher  was  not  only 
ungraceful  and  ungracious  in  manner,  but  he 
had  severe  limitations  in  education  and  fre- 
quently assumed  toward  his  elders  an  air  need- 
lessly arrogant  and  contemptuous.  On  the 
other  hand  he  must  reasonably  have  been  of- 
fended by  the  advice  so  frequently  given  him 
in  gratuitous  and  patronizing  fashion.  How- 
ever, soon  after  the  last  rebuff  just  recorded,  he 
says,  on  going  out  on  the  Granville  circuit, 
^'The  Lord  gave  me  souls  for  my  hire.''  Again 
making  application  to  the  Conference,  he  was 


Lorenzo  Dow  71 

admitted  on  trial  for  the  first  time  in  1798 
and  sent  to  Canada  to  break  fresh  ground.  He 
was  not  satisfied  with  the  unpromising  field  and 
wrote,  '^My  mind  was  drawn  to  the  water, 
and  Ireland  was  on  my  mind."  His  great  desire 
was  to  preach  the  gospel  to  the  Roman  Catho- 
lics beyond  the  sea.  Accordingly,  on  his  twenty- 
second  birthday,  acting  solely  on  his  own  re- 
sources, the  venturesome  evangelist  embarked 
at  Montreal  for  Dublin.  Here  he  had  printed 
three  thousand  handbills  to  warn  the  people 
of  the  wrath  to  come.  He  attracted  some  atten- 
tion, but  soon  caught  the  smallpox  and  was 
forced  to  return  home.  Back  in  America,  he 
communicated  to  the  Conference  his  desire  to 
'Hravel  the  country  at  large.''  The  church,  not 
all  impressed  in  his  favor  by  his  going  to  Ire- 
land on  his  own  accord,  would  do  nothing  more 
than  admit  him  to  his  old  status  of  being  on 
trial,  with  appointment  to  the  Dutchess,  Co- 
lumbia, and  Litchfield  circuits.  Depressed, 
Dow  gave  up  the  work,  and,  desiring  a  warmer 
climate,  he  turned  his  face  toward  the  South. 
From  this  time  forth,  while  he  constantly  ex- 
hibited a  willingness  to  meet  the  church  half 
way,  he  consistently  acted  with  all  possible  in- 


72  Africa  and  the  War 

dependence,  and  the  church  as  resolutely  set 
its  face  against  him. 

Dow  landed  in  Savannah  in  January,  1802. 
This  was  his  first  visit  to  the  region  that  was  to 
mean  so  much  to  him  and  in  whose  history  he 
himself  was  to  play  so  interesting  a  role.  He 
walked  on  foot  for  hundreds  of  miles  in  Georgia 
and  South  Carolina,  everywhere  preaching  the 
gospel  to  all  classes  alike.  Returning  to  the 
North,  he  found  that  once  more  he  could  not 
come  to  terms  with  his  conference.  He  went 
back  to  the  South,  going  now  by  land  for  the 
first  time.  He  went  as  far  as  Mississippi,  then 
the  wild  southwestern  frontier,  and  penetrated 
far  into  the  country  of  Indians  and  wolves. 
Returning,  in  1804  he  became  one  of  the  first 
evangelists  to  cultivate  the  camp-meeting  as  an 
institution  in  central  Virginia.  Then  he  threw 
down  the  gauntlet  to  established  Methodism, 
daring  to  speak  in  Baltimore  while  the  General 
Conference  of  the  church  was  in  session  there. 
The  church  replied  at  once,  the  New  York  Con- 
ference passing  a  law  definitely  commanding  its 
churches  to  shut  their  doors  against  him. 

A  new  interest,  however,  now  entered  into 
the  life  of  Lorenzo  Dow,  In  courtship  he  was  a^ 


Lorenzo  Dow  73 

unconventional  as  in  everything  else.  One  day 
while  tarrying  at  a  Methodist  tavern  In  Weston, 
New  York,  he  heard  that  Peggy,  the  sister-in- 
law  of  the  tavern-keeper,  was  resolved  never  to 
be  married  except  to  a  preacher  who  continued 
traveling.  Lorenzo  saw  the  comely  young 
woman  and  the  rest  of  the  story  is  best  given 
in  his  own  words:  ''When  going  away  I  ob- 
served to  her  that  I  was  going  to  the  warm 
countries,  where  I  had  never  spent  a  warm 
season,  and  it  was  probable  I  should  die,  as  the 
warm  climate  destroys  most  of  those  who  go 
there  from  a  cold  country;  but,  said  I,  if  I  am 
preserved,  about  a  year  and  a  half  from  now 
I  am  in  hopes  of  seeing  this  northern  country 
again,  and  if  during  this  time  you  live  and  re- 
main single,  and  find  no  one  that  you  like  better 
than  me,  and  would  be  willing  to  give  me  up 
twelve  months  out  of  thirteen,  or  three  years 
out  of  four,  to  travel,  and  that  in  foreign  lands, 
and  never  say.  Do  not  go  to  your  appointment, 
etc. — for  if  you  should  stand  in  my  way  I 
should  pray  God  to  remove  you,  which  I  believe 
he  would  answer — and  if  I  find  no  one  that  I 
like  better  than  I  do  you,  perhaps  something 
further  may  be  said  upon  the  subject;    and 


74  Africa  and  the  War 

finding  her  character  to  stand  fair,  I  took  my 
departure."  After  an  absence  of  nearly  two 
years  Dow  returned,  late  in  1804.  He  insisted 
upon  a  speedy  marriage.  Contrary  to  what  one 
might  expect  from  such  an  unusual  beginning, 
the  union  was  a  very  happy  one.  Always  faith- 
ful to  duty,  Dow  nevertheless  cherished  for  his 
wife  a  very  deep  and  genuine  love.  He  was  at 
no  time  satisfied  to  leave  her  behind,  as  he  had 
warned  her  that  he  might  do.  She  became  the 
constant  companion  of  his  wanderings.  In  the 
spring  of  1805  she  went  abroad  with  him,  and 
their  only  child,  a  girl,  Laetitia  Johnson,  was 
born  and  died  in  Great  Britain.  For  fifteen  years 
Peggy  inspired  her  husband,  without  a  murmur 
enduring  all  hardship  with  him,  until  she  died 
at  Hebron,  Connecticut,  in  1820.  Then  there 
came  a  day  when  in  an  open-air  sermon  under 
the  great  elm  on  Bean  Hill  Green  at  Norwich, 
Dow  extolled  the  virtues  of  his  former  com- 
panion and  at  the  end  of  his  sermon  asked,  '^Is 
there  any  one  in  this  congregation  willing  to 
take  the  place  of  my  departed  Peggy?"  Up 
rose  Lucy  Dolbeare  from  Montville,  six  feet 
high,  and  said,  ^'I  will."  Whether  Lorenzo  and 
Lucy  had  previously  arranged  this  dramatic 


Lorenzo  Dow  76 

proceeding  we  do  not  know.  We  do  know,  how- 
ever, that  she  too  made  a  loyal  companion, 
surviving  her  husband  for  several  years. 

About  the  time  of  his  first  marriage  Dow  was 
very  busy,  speaking  at  from  five  hundred  to 
eight  hundred  meetings  a  year.  In  the  year 
1805,  in  spite  of  the  inconveniences  of  those 
days,  he  traveled  ten  thousand  miles.  Then  he 
made  ready  to  go  again  to  Europe.  Everything 
possible  was  done  by  the  regular  church  to 
embarrass  him  on  this  second  visit,  and  when 
he  arrived  in  England  he  found  the  air  far  from 
cordial.  He  did  succeed  in  introducing  his 
camp-meetings  into  the  coimtry ,  hov\rever ;  and, 
although  the  Methodist  Conference  registered 
the  opinion  that  such  meetings  were  '^  highly 
improper  in  England, '^  Dow  prolonged  his  stay 
and  planted  seed  which,  as  we  shall  see,  was 
later  to  bear  abundant  fruit.  Returning  to 
America,  the  evangelist  set  out  upon  one  of  the 
most  memorable  periods  of  his  life,  journeying 
from  New  England  to  Florida  in  1807,  from 
Mississippi  to  New  England  and  through  the 
West  in  1808,  through  Louisiana  in  1809, 
through  Georgia  and  North  Carolina  and  back 
to  New  England  in  1810,  spending  1811  for  the 


16  Africa  and  the  War 

most  part  in  New  England,  working  southward 
to  Virginia  in  1812,  and  spending  1813  and 
1814  in  the  Middle  and  Northern  states,  where 
the  public  mind  was  '^  darkened  more  and  more 
against  him."  More  than  once  he  was  forced  to 
engage  in  controversy.  Typical  was  the  judg- 
ment of  the  Baltimore  Conference  in  1809, 
when,  in  a  matter  of  difference  between  Dow 
and  one  Mr.  S.,  without  Dow's  having  been 
seen,  opinion  was  given  to  the  effect  that  Mr. 
S.  ''had  given  satisfaction '^  to  the  conference. 
Some  remarks  of  Dow's  on  ''Church  Govern- 
ment'^ were  seized  upon  as  the  excuse  for  the 
treatment  generally  accorded  him  by  the 
church.  In  spite  of  much  hostile  opinion,  how- 
ever, Dow  seems  always  to  have  found  firm 
friends  in  the  state  of  North  Carolina.  In  1818 
a  paper  in  Raleigh  spoke  of  him  as  follows: 
"However  his  independent  way  of  thinking, 
and  his  unsparing  candor  of  language  may  have 
offended  others,  he  has  always  been  treated 
here  with  the  respect  due  to  his  disinterested 
exertions,  and  the  strong  powers  of  mind  which 
his  sermons  constantly  exhibit.'^ 

His  hold  upon  the  masses  was  remarkable. 
No  preacher  so  well  as  he  understood  the  heart 


Lorenzo  Dow  77 

of  the  pioneer.  In  a  day  when  the  ^^ jerks," 
and  falling  and  rolling  on  the  ground,  and  danc- 
ing still  accompanied  religious  emotion,  he  still 
knew  how  to  give  to  his  hearers,  whether  bond 
or  free,  the  wholesome  bread  of  life.  Frequently 
he  inspired  an  awe  that  was  almost  supersti- 
tious and  made  numerous  converts.  Sometimes 
he  would  make  appointments  a  year  beforehand 
and  suddenly  appear  before  a  waiting  congrega- 
tion like  an  apparition.  At  Montville,  Con- 
necticut, a  thief  had  stolen  an  axe.  In  the  course 
of  a  sermon  Dow  said  that  the  guilty  man  was 
in  the  congregation  and  had  a  feather  on  his 
nose.  At  once  the  right  man  was  detected  by 
his  trying  to  brush  away  the  feather.  On  an- 
other occasion  Dow  denounced  a  rich  man  who 
had  recently  died.  He  was  tried  for  slander 
and  imprisoned  in  the  county  jail.  As  soon  as 
he  was  released  he  announced  that  he  would 
preach  about  '^ another  rich  man."  Going  into 
the  pulpit  at  the  appointed  time,  he  began  to 
read:  ''And  there  was  another  rich  man  who 
died  and — ."  Here  he  stopped  and  after  a 
breathless  pause  he  said,  ^'Brethren,  I  shall  not 
mention  the  place  this  rich  man  went  to,  for 
fear  he  has  some  relatives  in  this  congregation 


78  Africa  and  the  War 

who  will  sue  me."  The  effect  was  irresistible; 
but  Dow  heightened  it  by  taking  another  text, 
preaching  a  most  dignified  sermon,  and  not 
again  referring  to  the  text  on  which  he  had 
started. 

Dow  went  again  to  England  in  1818.  He  was 
not  well  received  by  the  Calvinists  or  the 
Methodists,  and  of  course  not  by  the  Episco- 
palians; but  he  found  that  his  camp-meeting 
idea  had  begun  twelve  years  before  a  new  re- 
ligious sect,  that  of  the  Primitive  Methodists, 
commonly  known  as  ''ranters.'^  The  society  in 
1818  was  several  thousand  strong,  and  Dow 
visited  between  thirty  and  forty  of  its  chapels. 
Returning  home  he  resumed  his  itineraries,  go- 
ing in  1827  as  far  west  as  Missouri.  In  thinking 
of  this  man's  work  in  the  West  we  must  keep 
constantly  in  mind  of  course  the  great  difference 
made  by  a  hundred  years.  In  Charleston  in 
1821  he  was  arrested  for  ''an  alleged  libel  against 
the  peace  and  dignity  of  the  state  of  South 
Carolina."  His  wife  went  north,  as  it  was  not 
known  but  that  he  might  be  detained  a  long 
time ;  but  he  was  released  on  payment  of  a  fine 
of  one  dollar.  In  Troy  also  he  was  once  ar- 
rested on  a  false  pretense.    At  length,  however^ 


Lorenzo  Dow ,  79 

he  rejoiced  to  see  his  enemies  defeated.  In 
1827  he  wrote:  '^ Those  who  instigated  the  trou- 
ble for  me  at  Charleston,  South  Carolina,  or 
contributed  thereto,  were  all  cut  off  within  the 
space  of  three  years,  except  Robert  Y.  Hayne, 
who  was  then  the  Attorney-General  for  the 
state,  and  is  now  the  Governor  for  the  nulUfiers.^' 
In  his  later  years  Dow  was  interested  not  only 
in  the  salvation  of  sinners  but  also  in  saving  his 
country  from  what  he  honestly  believed  to  be 
the  dangers  of  Roman  Catholicism.  The 
Jesuits  he  regarded  as  the  stern  foes  of  pure 
religion  and  republican  government.  Even  in 
Africa  to-day  the  issue  that  he  foresaw  is  im- 
portant. This  rugged  pioneer  was  also  the 
stanch  opponent  of  slavery.  He  was  as  out- 
spoken a  champion  of  freedom  as  lived  in  Amer- 
ica in  his  day.  Said  he:  ''Pride  and  vainglory 
on  the  one  side,  and  degradation  and  oppression 
on  the  other  creates  on  the  one  hand  a  spirit  of 
contempt,  and  on  the  other  a  spirit  of  hatred 
and  revenge";  and  f mother:  ''Slavery  in  the 
South  is  an  evil  that  calls  for  national  reform 
and  repentance,"  a  "national  scourge"  yet  to 
be  "antidoted"  before  the  gathering  and  burst- 
ing of  the  storm.    He  was  cordial  in  his  relations 


80  Africa  and  the  War 

with  Negroes,  was  pleased  to  accept  their  hospi- 
taUty,  and  on  one  occasion  in  Savannah,  when 
Andrew  Bryan,  the  well-known  Negro  minister 
of  the  city,  had  because  of  his  preaching  been 
imprisoned  and  submitted  to  other  indignities, 
himself  preached  to  the  waiting  and  anxious 
congregation.  His  Journal  closes  with  these 
remarkable  words:  "Where  I  may  be  this  time 
twelve  months,  is  very  uncertain  with  me; 
whether  in  England,  Sierra  Leone,  in  Africa, 
West  Indies,  or  New  England — or  eternity;  but 
the  controversy  with  the  nations  is  not  over, 
nor  will  be,  until  the  Divine  government  is 
reverentially  acknowledged  by  the  human 
family/' 

The  year  1833  Dow  spent  in  visiting  various 
places  in  New  York.  His  last  tour  was  through 
the  Cumberland  and  Wyoming  valleys  in  Penn- 
sylvania. He  hoped  to  be  able  to  address 
Congress  and  to  warn  the  members  against  the 
Jesuits,  but  was  prevented  by  failing  health. 
In  1833  he  wrote  in  his  JoiUTial: 

I  am  nowin  my  fifty-sixth  year  in  the  journey  of  life;  and 
enjoy  better  health  than  when  but  30  or  35  years  old,  with 
the  exception  of  the  callous  in  my  breast,  which  at  times 
gives  me  great  pain.  .  .  .  The  dealings  of  God  to  me-ward, 


Lorenzo  Dow  81 

have  been  good.  I  have  seen  his  delivering  hand,  and  felt 
the  inward  support  of  his  grace,  by  faith  and  hope,  which 
kept  my  head  from  sinking  when  the  billows  of  affliction 
seemed  to  encompass  me  around.  .  .  .  And  should  those 
hints  exemplified  in  the  experience  of  CosmopoHte  be 
beneficial  to  any  one,  give  God  the  glory.  Amen  and 
Amen!  Farewell! 

He  died  at  Georgetown,  D.  C,  February  2, 
1834,  and  rests  under  a  simple  slab  in  Oak  Hill 
Cemetery  in  Washington, 

There  is  only  one  word  to  describe  the  writ- 
ings of  Lorenzo  Dow — Miscellanies.  Anything 
whatsoever  that  came  to  the  evangelist's  mind 
was  set  down,  not  always  with  good  form, 
though  frequently  with  witty  and  forceful  ex- 
pression. Here  are  "Hints  to  the  Public,  or 
Thoughts  on  the  Fulfilment  of  Prophecy  in 
1811'';  "A  Jomney  from  Babylon  to  Jerusa- 
lem," with  a  good  deal  of  sophomoric  discussion 
of  natural  and  moral  philosophy;  ''A  Dialogue 
between  the  Curious  and  the  Singular,"  with 
some  discussion  of  religious  societies  and  theo- 
logical principles;  "Chain  of  Lorenzo,"  an  argu- 
ment on  the  eternal  sonship  of  Christ;  "Omni- 
farious Law  Exemplified:  How  to  Curse  and 
Swear,  Lie,  Cheat  and  Kill  according  to  Law"; 


82  Africa  and  the  War 

'^ Reflections  on  the  Important  Subject  of  Matri- 
mony/' and  much  more  of  the  same  sort.  Just 
now,  however,  we  are  especially  interested  in 
the  utterances  against  slavery,  and  those  that 
we  may  read  show  Lorenzo  Dow  to  have  been 
as  outspoken  a  champion  of  freedom  as  lived  in 
America  in  his  day. 

In  ^^ Hints  to  the  Public''  warning  is  given 
that  the  world  must  be  redeemed  before  the 
second  coming  of  Christ.  America  has  her  sins 
just  as  well  as  the  rest  of  the  world.  ''Slavery 
in  the  South,  and  religious  establishments  in  the 
North,  are  National  Evils,  that  call  for  national 
reform  and  repentance.'' 

"Strictures  on  Church  Government"  has  al- 
ready been  referred  to  as  bringing  upon  Dow 
the  wrath  of  the  Methodist  Church.  The  gen- 
eral thesis  of  this  publication,  regarded  at  the 
time  as  so  sensational,  is  that  the  Methodist 
mode  of  church  government  is  the  most  arbi- 
trary and  despotic  of  any  in  America,  with  the 
possible  exception  of  that  of  the  Shakers.  Dow 
questions  the  far-reaching  authority  of  Bishops 
Coke,  Asbury,  and  McKendree,  and  accuses 
Asbury  of  being  jealous  of  the  rising  power  of 
Richard  Allen,  f oimder  of  the  African  Methodist 


Lorenzo  Dow  83 

Church.  He  refers  at  considerable  length  to 
the  incident  in  a  Philadelphia  church  which 
ultimately  made  Absalom  Jones  a  rector  and 
Richard  Allen  a  bishop:  '^The  colored  people 
were  considered  by  some  persons  as  being  in 
the  way.  They  were  resolved  to  have  them  re- 
moved, and  placed  around  the  walls,  comers, 
etc. ;  which  to  execute,  the  above  expelled  and 
restored  man,  at  prayer  time,  did  attempt  to 
pull  Absolem  Jones  from  his  knees,  which  pro- 
cedure, with  its  concomitants,  gave  rise  to  the 
building  of  an  African  meeting  house,  the  first 
ever  built  in  these  middle  or  northern  states.'' 
"A  Cry  from  the  Wilderness — Intended  as  a 
Timely  and  Solemn  Warning  to  the  People  of 
the  United  States ''  is  in  every  way  one  of  Dow's 
most  characteristic  works.  At  this  distance, 
when  slavery  and  the  Civil  War  are  viewed  in 
the  perspective,  the  mystic  words  of  the  oracle 
impress  one  as  almost  uncanny:  ^^In  the  rest 
of  the  southern  states  the  influence  of  these 
Foreigners  will  be  known  and  felt  in  its  time, 
and  the  seeds  from  the  Hory  Alliance  and  the 
Decapigandi,  who  have  a  hand  in  those  grades 
of  Generals,  from  the  InJjuisitor  to  the  Vicar 
General  and  down  •  .  .  !  !  !  W&-  The  STRUG- 


84  Africa  and  the  War 

GLE  will  be  DREADFUL!  the  CUP  will  be 
BITTER!  and  when  the  agony  is  over,  those 
who  survive  may  see  better  days!  FARE- 
WELL!'' 

Here  at  least  was  a  man  with  a  mission — that 
mission  to  carry  the  gospel  of  Christ  to  the 
uttermost  parts  of  the  earth.  He  knew  no 
standard  but  that  of  duty;  he  heeded  no  com- 
mand but  that  of  his  own  soul.  Rude,  and  sharp 
of  speech  he  was,  and  only  half-educated;  but 
he  was  made  of  the  stuff  of  heroes;  and  neither 
hunger,  nor  cold,  nor  powers,  nor  principalities, 
nor  things  present,  nor  things  to  come,  could 
daunt  him  in  his  task.  After  the  lapse  of  a 
hundred  years  he  looms  larger,  not  smaller,  in 
the  history  of  our  Southland;  and  as  of  old  we 
seem  to  hear  again  ''the  voice  of  one  crying 
in  the  wilderness,  Prepare  ye  the  way  of  the 
Lord,'' 


TV 


THOMAS    CARLYLE,    THE    NEGRO    QUESTION,    AND 
THE   PRESENT  WORLD   PROBLEM 

THOMAS  CARLYLE  has  a  unique  place 
in  the  history  of  EngUsh  thought.  In 
an  age  dominated  by  Kberal  impulses,  more 
than  any  other  man  in  his  country  he  protested 
against  the  spirit  of  reform.  Professedly  an 
ardent  disciple  of  liberty,  and  universally  recog- 
nized as  a  seer  and  prophet,  he  stands  out  on 
the  page  of  history  as  a  reactionary  surpassed 
in  his  own  time  only  by  Metternich.  In  con- 
nection with  the  great  events  of  our  own  day  he 
is  revealed  ever  more  plainly  as  the  first  great 
exponent  of  the  theories  that  entered  into  the 
making  of  modern  Germany  and  that  have  be- 
come so  well  known  the  world  over. 

In  an  age  of  great  minds  Carlyle  found  him- 
self strangely  out  of  sympathy  with  his  con- 
temporaries.   In  1824,  much  maligned  after  a 

85 


86  Africa  and  the  War 

period  of  flattery,  and  for  nine  years  practically 
an  exile  from  England,  Byron  ended  his  career 
in  a  blaze  of  glory  at  Missolonghi.  There  was 
something  in  the  death  of  the  brilliant  poet  that 
struck  the  popular  imagination  of  Europe.  It 
mattered  not  that  he  died  of  a  fever  instead  of  on 
the  field  of  battle;  a  great  poet  had  given  his 
life  for  the  independence  of  Greece,  and  that 
was  enough  for  an  age  of  idealism.  Byron's 
real  successor  was  a  woman,  Elizabeth  Barrett 
Browning.  The  life  of  this  famous  writer  was 
one  great  heart-throb.  She  followed  with  eager- 
ness the  great  social  reforms  in  England  in  the 
reign  of  William  IV,  writing  such  a  poem  as 
''The  Cry  of  the  Children'';  and  in  her  later 
years  she  threw  herself  heart  and  soul  into  the 
cause  of  Italian  independence  and  liberty.  Her 
poUtical  judgment  was  not  always  sound;  her 
distinguished  husband,  for  instance,  could  not 
possibly  follow  her  in  her  admiration  for  Na- 
poleon III,  whom  he  regarded  as  a  charla- 
tan; nevertheless  the  great  heart  of  Elizabeth 
Barrett  Browning  was  ever  moved  by  the  de- 
mands of  freedom,  whether  the  immediate 
impulse  was  a  child  in  the  factories  of  England, 
an  Italian  wishing  to  be  free  of  Austria,  or  a 


Thomas  Carlyle  87 

slave  in  the  lowlands  of  America.  She  too  struck 
the  popular  imagination  by  dying  in  a  foreign 
country  which  was  struggling  for  liberty  and 
to  which  she  had  given  so  much  of  her  best 
love.  One  of  those  whom  she  defended  as  occa- 
sion offered  was  the  exiled  Victor  Hugo.  Such 
a  novel  as  U  Homme  qui  Rit,  or  the  still  greater 
Les  Miserables,  may  not  be  impeccable  in  form, 
but  must  ever  stand  out  as  a  sterhng  effort  to 
voice  the  soul  of  the  oppressed.  The  whole 
of  Europe  was  interested  in  the  story  of  the 
great  poet  and  patriot  who  felt  himself  honored 
by  the  ill  will  of  Napoleon  III.  There  were 
others  also.  Dickens  wrote  Oliver  Twist  and 
Nicholas  Nicklehy,  pleading  for  the  oppressed  at 
the  same  time  that  he  was  overthrowing  the 
tradition  of  Scott.  Macaulay,  the  son  of  an 
abolitionist,  placed  himself  squarely  on  the  side 
of  the  Whigs  and  reform.  Across  the  ocean 
Wendell  Phillips  was  outstanding  as  an  ideahst 
in  the  years  that  cultivated  not  one  but  many 
strong  friends  for  freedom.  On  the  continent 
the  names  of  Mazzini  and  Kossuth  are  synony- 
mous with  the  struggles  of  their  countrymen. 

In  striking  contrast  to  such  figures  as  these 
stood  Carlyle.      One  cannot  understand  him 


88  Africa  and  the  War 

without  taking  into  account  his  sturdy  inheri- 
tance. He  possessed  to  his  dying  day  a  certain 
independence  that,  strangely  enough,  made  him 
not  so  much  value  liberty  for  the  ordinary  man 
in  the  street  as  place  a  premium  on  the  one  who 
was  able  successfully  to  rule  others.  As  Mr. 
Chesterton  says  in  his  stimulating  book  on  the 
Victorian  Age  in  Literature,  '*as  an  ordinary 
lowland  peasant  he  inherited  the  really  valuable 
historic  property  of  the  Scots,  their  indepen- 
dence, their  fighting  spirit,  and  their  instinctive 
philosophic  consideration  of  men  merely  as 
men.''  Something  of  this  independence  doubt- 
less accounted  for  the  reserve,  the  aloofness,  that 
always  characterized  him.  At  Edinburgh  he 
mingled  little  with  his  fellow-students,  and  he 
despised  the  university's  system  of  education. 
Six  years  he  spent  on  the  barren  fields  of  Craig- 
enputtoch;  and  even  when  he  moved  down  to 
London  he  cultivated  only  a  few  distinctly  in- 
tellectual acquaintances.  Such  a  man  might 
have  a  few  friends,  and  these  unusually  firm 
ones;  but  he  would  not  have  many  friends,  nor 
would  he  find  place  for  much  sympathy  with  the 
great  mass  of  people.  From  his  study  society 
is  §een  more  and  mor^  as  in  a  mirror,    Only 


Thomas  Carlyle  89 

the  strong  man  can  stand  out  in  the  perspective; 
the  people  are  largely  an  abstraction  and  do 
not  count. 

Another  strong  influence  to  be  observed  in 
any  consideration  of  Carlyle  is  that  of  German 
culture.  An  early  reading  of  Madame  de 
StaeFs  De  VAllemagne  first  strongly  directed  his 
attention  to  the  poets  and  dramatists  of  Ger- 
many ;  he  drew  something  of  his  transcendental- 
ism from  Novalis,  and  much  of  his  political 
inspiration  from  Fichte.  He  wrote  a  life  of 
Schiller,  a  laborious  study  of  Frederick  the 
Great,  and  edited  the  letters  and  speeches  of 
Cromwell,  the  most  German  of  Englishmen.  Es- 
pecially did  he  acknowledge  a  debt  of  gratitude 
to  Goethe.  The  very  name  of  this  great  poet, 
however,  reveals  his  shortcomings.  He  was 
singularly  lacking  in  Goethe's  breadth.  With 
his  clear  vision  and  his  fine  sense  of  proportion 
as  well  as  by  his  innate  genius,  Goethe  has  be- 
come one  of  the  first  figures  in  the  history  and 
the  thought  of  the  human  race.  Carlyle,  how- 
ever, with  his  dyspepsia,  his  glorification  of 
force — ^we  might  almost  say  his  misanthropy — 
while  sometimes  he  rose  to  the  majesty  of  the 
§eer,  for  the  most  part  exhibited  a  l^ok.  pf  that 


90  Africa  and  the  War 

proportion  which  comes  only  from  a  sure  con- 
ception of  the  scientific  spirit. 

We  need  not  be  astonished  then  at  the  system 
of  thought  that  he  worked  out.  In  1839  ap- 
peared his  powerful  tract  on  Chartism,  in  which 
he  definitely  took  his  stand  against  the  Uberal- 
ism  that  was  becoming  ever  more  popular  in  his 
day.  '^I  am  not  a  Tory/'  he  said;  ^'no,  but 
one  of  the  deepest  though  perhaps  the  quietest 
of  radicals.''  As  Dr.  J.  G.  Robertson  has 
pointed  out,  however,  in  the  Cambridge  History 
of  English  Literature,  'Hhe  only  radicahsm,  as 
it  now  seemed  to  him,  which  would  avail  against 
the  ills  and  cankers  of  the  day  was  the  hand  of 
the  just,  strong  man.  The  salvation  of  the  work- 
ing-classes was  not  to  be  attained  by  political 
enfranchisement  and  the  dicta  of  pohtical 
economists,  but  by  reverting  to  the  conditions 
of  the  Middle  Ages,  when  the  laborer  was  still 
a  serf.  The  freedom  of  the  workingman  was  a 
delusion;  it  meant  only  freedom  to  be  sucked 
out  in  the  labor  market,  freedom  to  be  a  greater 
slave  than  he  had  ever  been  before."  The  natu- 
ral successor  to  Chartism  in  such  a  line  of  think- 
ing was  the  series  of  lectures  delivered  the  next 
year.  Heroes  and  Hero-Worship.     We  are  now 


Thomas  Carlyle  91 

no  longer  left  in  doubt  about  the  prophet's 
guiding  principle:  ^^In  all  epochs  of  the  world's 
history,  we  shall  find  the  Great  Man  to  have 
been  the  indispensable  savior  of  his  epoch; — 
the  hghtning,  without  which  the  fuel  would 
never  have  burnt.  The  History  of  the  World  is 
the  Biography  of  Great  Men.''  Herohood,  how- 
ever, has  a  distinctively  German  quaUty: 
'^  Virtue,  Vir-tus,  manhood,  /^erohood,  is  not  fair- 
spoken  immaculate  regularity;  it  is,  first  of  all, 
what  the  Germans  well  name  it,  Tugend  {T au- 
gend, dow-mg  or  Dough-imQ^^) ,  Courage  and  the 
Faculty  to  do.  This  basis  of  the  matter  Crom- 
well had  in  him."  In  the  Latter  Day  Pamphlets 
of  1850,  largely  a  reaction  from  the  revolutions 
of  1848,  the  apologist  for  force  stood  fully  re- 
vealed; and  he  now  lost  the  friendship  of  one 
of  the  purest  of  souls,  Mazzini. 

If  Carlyle  so  glorified  the  man  of  brute 
strength,  he  could  not  be  otherwise  than  dis- 
satisfied with  an  age  that  advocated  reform-s. 
With  science,  with  political  economy,  with  de- 
mocracy, he  had  no  sympathy;  and  nothing 
was  more  obnoxious  to  him  than  the  thought  of 
rule  by  a  majority.  In  his  Edinburgh  paper, 
^' Signs  of  the  Times,"  he  inveighed  against  the 


92  Africa  and  the  War 

age  in  which  he  was  living  somewhat  as  follows: 
^'It  is  the  age  of  Machinery,  in  every  outward 
and  inward  sense  of  that  word;  the  age  which 
with  its  whole  undivided  might,  forwards, 
teaches,  and  practises  the  great  art  of  adapting 
means  to  ends.  Nothing  is  now  done  directly, 
or  by  hand;  all  is  by  rule  and  calculated  con- 
trivance. For  the  simplest  operation,  some 
helps  and  accompaniments,  some  cunning,  ab- 
breviated process  is  in  readiness.  The  living 
artisan  is  driven  from  his  workshop,  to  make 
room  for  a  speedier,  inanimate  one.''  Carlyle 
sneers  as  he  sees  something  of  the  principle  car- 
ried over  into  spiritual  realms:  ''Every  httle 
sect  among  us.  Unitarians,  Utilitarians,  Ana- 
baptists, Phrenologists,  must  each  have  its  peri- 
odical, its  monthly  or  quarterly  magazine, — 
hanging  out,  like  its  windmill,  into  the  popularis 
aura,  to  grind  meal  for  the  society."  Further, 
''the  whole  discontent  of  Europe  takes  this 
direction.  The  deep,  strong  cry  of  all  civiUzed 
nations — a  cry  which  every  one  now  sees,  must 
and  will  be  answered — is.  Give  us  a  reform  of 
Government!  A  good  structure  of  legislation, — 
a  proper  check  upon  the  executive, — a  wise  ar- 
rangement of  the  judiciary,  is  all  that  is  wanting 


Thomas  Carlyle  93 

for  human  happiness.  Were  the  laws,  the  gov- 
ernment, in  good  order,  all  were  well  with  us; 
the  rest  would  care  for  itself/'  Finally,  *'to 
reform  a  world,  to  reform  a  nation,  no  wise  man 
will  undertake;  and  all  but  foolish  men  know 
that  the  only  solid,  though  a  far  slower  reforma- 
tion, is  what  each  begins  and  perfects  on  him- 
self.'' 

Now  Carlyle  of  course  was  not  the  only 
protest  in  his  own  day  against  the  materialism 
that  seemed  to  envelop  all  things.  The  Oxford 
Movement  made  itseK  felt  in  religion,  and  the 
same  impulse  accounted  for  Pre-Raphaelitism  in 
art.  Carlyle,  however,  brought  the  discussion 
into  the  arena  of  public  affairs.  Professedly  a 
Liberal,  he  was  at  heart  an  arrant  Tory.  Oppo- 
nent of  Darwin,  he  himself  represented  better 
than  anybody  else  the  cruel  doctrine  of  the  sur- 
vival of  the  fittest.  And  either  he  was  too  ab- 
breviated in  his  logic  or  too  cowardly  to  carry 
his  system  to  its  natural  conclusion.  Even  as  it 
is,  however,  he  stands  revealed  as  the  direct 
progenitor  of  Nietzsche.  The  Hero  is  the  father 
of  the  Ubermensch.  When,  therefore,  Germany 
invaded  France  in  1870  we  are  not  surprised  to 
find  Carlyle  writing  in  the  Times  an  appeal  in 


94  Africa  and  the  War 

behalf  of  the  country  of  his  love,  or  to  know 
that  for  his  valued  services  Bismarck  later  be- 
stowed upon  him  the  Prussian  Order  of  Merit. 

All  of  his  thought  as  bearing  on  the  Negro 
Carlyle  summed  up  in  his  paper,  ''The  Nigger 
Question/'  The  title  speaks  for  itseK.  He  had 
no  sympathy  for  the  abolitionists  in  America; 
so  far  as  he  could  see,  they  were  on  the  wrong 
road  altogether;  and  he  naturally  fell  on  the 
side  of  the  Confederate  States  in  the  Civil  War. 
He  seems  interested  in  recording  the  impression 
of  his  friend  Sterling  that  the  Negroes  of  the 
West  Indies  were  unfit  for  the  suffrage.  So  to 
him  indeed  would  be  the  Poles,  the  Hindoos, 
the  Jugo-Slavs — all  struggling  people  of  our 
own  day.  So,  too,  would  he  defend  the  treat- 
ment of  the  Herreros  by  Germany  in  1903. 
Such  a  man  might  have  some  greatness  of  soul, 
but  he  is  out  of  touch  with  the  onward  move- 
ment of  humanity.  He  has  no  place  in  his 
scheme  for  the  unfortunate,  the  maimed,  the 
uneducated — no  place  for  pity,  no  place  for  love. 
He  glorifies  Caesar  and  Cromwell  and  Freder- 
ick, but  he  knows  not  the  rule  of  Jesus  Christ. 


THIS  BOOK  IS  DUE  ON  TJrx-  r 

STAMPED  BE^yr        ""  ''^'^ 


-■ 


MAR  21  1933 


FEB  16  1934 


,      I  ^^   J934 

I^Ol/  2  2  J959 
••?   4 1967  76 


£, 


RECEIVED 

FEB  23 '67  "8  AH' 

LOAN  DEPT. 


APR  2  0 1967  6  5 


f? 


4P/? 


'^G'/V 


^O 


^l  '67. 


5Pi\/l 


LD2l-50m-l,'3« 


LIBRARY  USE 

RETURN  TO  DESK  FROM  WHICH  BORROWED 

LOAN  DEPT. 

THIS  BOOK  IS  DUE  BEFORE  CLOSING  TIME 
ON  LAST  DATE  STAMPED  BELOW 

^^^kARY  m 

may  20 '^r 

^  *mi 

(       MAY  2  9 'Rt;.,,  p. 

i 

\J  !^'       -J^    f  "jy 

. 

^  , 

LD  62A-50m-2,'64                              ,,   •^''^^^^ }^\^r^     • 
(E3494S10 )  94i2A                             ^'""'^"gJ^J^^lef       *"" 

_x' 


p& 


